


The Last Sacrifice

by eris_of_imladris



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Barkspawn is the best mabari name, Gen, Lyrium Addiction, Paranoia, Red Lyrium
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-20 16:16:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 35
Words: 52,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13150341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eris_of_imladris/pseuds/eris_of_imladris
Summary: Knight-Commander Meredith stands strong as a bulwark against the enemy, all the while not realizing her biggest enemy is her own mind. A look at Meredith from orphan to heroine, villain to fallen, through her own eyes, and the eyes of the new heroine who brought her down.My NaNoWriMo from 2015.





	1. Part I / Her Name Was Amelia

**PART I**

_"You either die the hero..."_

 

The sky was so beautiful. I looked up at the vast blueness, not a cloud in sight. Just the color of my eyes – and hers. My big sister, the one person who I looked up to with absolutely everything. In her, I saw none of the anxiety, the fear, the shame of not being who she was supposed to – only the bright blue, not dim and dark like the water dipped into by the sailors’ oars, just lit up brilliantly. Always, for me.

The embers started bleeding into the sky. I could hear the shouting, the screaming, but I couldn’t think of what was really happening. My sister was not involved in this. She would come up next to me and put her arm around me and reassure me that everything was okay, that she would take care of me. Not that I needed much care – even at ten, I was rather self-sufficient – but after I had seen my parents for the final time, I was looking for something in the flecks of red – I didn’t want to think about what this was – shooting upwards. The licks of flame, the blazes and the electricity surging through the air. I had never felt magic like this before. This magic sought to kill, whereas my sister’s clumsy misadventures usually cost us a piece of furniture or a bit of clothing.

I almost didn’t realize when the templars arrived. I saw the glint of silver on their armor from the sun streaming down, watched their swords glitter as they pulled them out of their sheaths. The man in front barely concealed his disgust as he yelled, “You two to the right! Corner the mage! Secure the sides!” I watched the other men obeyed him, their faces hard-set and grim. The man in charge ended up near me, but he didn’t see me at all. I simply hid behind his shield and watched the armor of one templar burst into flames with a powerful explosion. I looked away from his burning face only to see the horrified looks on the faces of some parents from the neighborhood. I couldn’t think of most of their names. I didn’t want to think of their names when they fell to the ground, so I turned away.

“Cover me!” the templar in charge yelled, and he lunged forward with a large sword. I saw the demon snarl, heard its words in a mutation of a girl’s voice. I covered my ears and watched the templar duck and re-emerge. I turned my head away when he beheaded her. That, I didn’t want to see, but I knew the moment it happened because the world suddenly got quiet again.

The remaining templars walked towards the body, one turning it over with his boot. Aside from the head being missing, the girl looked normal. Like I knew her to be, except that she would never be in the dirt in her nice white tunic and if she got embers on her legs she would complain and brush them away. A thin line of blood was on her leg. Her hair covered her face, so I walked closer to brush the sweaty blonde curls out of her eyes. They were open, and her face was the guilty look I had come to associate with her magic – the look that she had done something wrong.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was cold and metallic, how I had always assumed the templars to be. It was the man who had rushed forward, whose orders everyone had obeyed, who bent down to look at me. His face was lined and grizzled, yet he didn’t even look too old. His hair was silvering from red and when I turned to look at the body again, he gripped my face and turned it towards him.

“Do you know this mage?” he asked.

I nodded slowly.

“Who was she?”

“I’m not supposed to tell.”                              

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. It was only at this point that I saw the blood flecked on his gloves, on his armor, on his face. He looked almost demonic himself, yet in his eyes there was kindness. He was not going to kill me.

“My sister,” I mumbled. I was ashamed for the first time. Mother and Father always told me that her magic wasn’t something to be ashamed of even though we were hiding her, and that if the templars knew, they wouldn’t have enough kindness to spare me even though I had never displayed any magical abilities.

“Your sister – are you a mage?”

“No,” I said, trying to make my voice as loud as possible. Ironically, I was just starting to get scared.

“We need to – give me a minute,” he said as he stood up. “Don’t go anywhere,” he cautioned as he approached the other templars. They stood in a small group for a few moments, exchanging stories. One man went to the two templar bodies and closed their eyes. The people – the mothers who invited me to their homes and the children I played with, the fathers who I watched coming home from work and the annoying older brothers who thought it was funny to tease me about my sick sister – they were all gone, and no one was there to mourn for them.

I looked up at the sky until the lead templar came to take me away. Mother said that templars take people like me away, so I didn’t fight. The fight was already lost, and even as I kicked up the dirt when I walked, I knew I could do no real rebellion. Templars were simply too powerful to fight against, even if the cause was fighting for my sister. Even if the cause was right.

The templars led me to the Chantry. I had been inside the large building before, on festivals and special occasions when Mother and Father dressed me in my best clothing and we walked to the Chantry together, kneeling down at the pews and praying aloud for my sick sister. We left her in the house alone and there was always a part of Mother that made her hurry on the way back, always something questioning whether the house would still be intact when we got back.

Two templars opened the loud doors and the noise echoed in the hall. The leader walked in and ushered me in front of him in the large, empty room. His voice boomed in the silence. “I need the Grand Cleric.”

A young sister poked her head through a side door. “Oh, welcome, Knight-Commander,” she shuffled forward. “Her Grace is not here at the moment, although the new Mother is – ”

“She’d work perfectly. Thank you,” he nodded to the young woman, and within a few minutes, she had returned with another woman who was slightly older. She approached the templars more confidently and responded with a small nod when the templars bowed respectfully. “Mother Elthina,” he greeted her.

“Knight-Commander Guylian, what can I do for you?” Her quick eyes found the blood on his armor and then darted down to me.

He stepped aside and motioned for her to follow. I watched them as they conversed, not bothering to look around the rest of the Chantry or at the two templars shuffling their feet at the back of the room as they stood guard. The Knight-Commander’s voice was not quiet even when he wanted it to be, so I heard “not good with kids” and “need her to talk” and “dozens of fatalities. Dozens, Elthina” and saw the mother’s face blanch.

“Can you bring out a chair?” she asked. This was the first time I had heard her voice in the whole “silent” conversation – I wondered how someone who could tell templars what to do could be so quiet. The Knight-Commander sent his two men to get a heavy wooden chair, which she placed near the side door, not obstructing access to any pews. Then she sat down and looked at me and patted her legs. “Come sit here.”

I obeyed, although I was too old for that. Her face scared me, all perfect and porcelain, with just a few strands of black hair peeking out from under her miter. When she spoke again, it was with a kinder tone, and she sounded far gentler. I could picture a person under the heavy robes. “What’s your name?”

“Mother said the templars would kill me. If I told.”

Mother Elthina raised an eyebrow at the Knight-Commander, who shrugged his shoulders. She touched my ear, bringing my attention back to her. “No one will hurt you. You are in the Chantry. You are safe,” she said in a measured pace.

“Meredith,” I said, and a few moments later, added, “Stannard.” I was supposed to be proud to be a Stannard, proud to be my parents’ daughter. Everything we did was for family. No matter what the templars would do to me, I would always be the younger Stannard girl.

“Thank you, Meredith. So I heard that something happened in your neighborhood today.” I nodded, not meeting her eyes. “Can you tell me about it?”

“I’m not supposed to talk about it,” I said again. If I was safe, why did I have to talk?

She considered her words for a moment and then asked me, “Do you know the mage?”

“Yeah. My sister.” I had said it already, but this felt so much more real. This felt like the trial my parents had threatened me with when I had asked why we didn’t tell about my sister, why we kept her hidden and safe in the house even though she wasn’t really sick.

“What was her name?”

“Amelia,” I said, trying not to think of the last time I had seen the real her. Not the bloody stump of a head but the sister with my matching eyes who I had always looked up to.

“How old was she?”

“She’s fourteen,” I said, before remembering. She was not alive to age any more. I might even get older than her, if they didn’t kill me.

“Fourteen,” the Knight-Commander grumbled. I had almost forgotten he was there. “They keep getting younger.”

“I’m sorry,” I said in response.

“It’s not your fault,” Mother Elthina said, but I didn’t know what to do with that. If I had told, maybe all the people wouldn’t have died. Maybe even Amelia would have survived. My parents had said she wouldn’t have survived the Circle’s rigorous testing, that she was too delicate. “Do you know… was she angry at all? Or did she seem…” She whispered a question to the Knight-Commander. “Did she seem afraid at all?”

“Afraid of what?”

“Anything.”

I recalled the way she had taken a lot of time with Mother last night. She had locked herself in my parents’ bedroom for hours and when she came out, and I asked her what was wrong, she had walked past me into her room. I had fallen asleep last night to the sound of her tears, but it wasn’t even that unusual lately. “She was scared of something. Blood, I think it was.”

“Damn,” the Knight-Commander swore, and Mother Elthina shot him a look before returning to me.

“Meredith, do you have any family besides your sister?”

“Mother and Father… I heard them die. I don’t have anyone else,” I said, and she leaned her head on her hand as she thought.

“Come follow me,” she said, and she tried to get up, but I didn’t move. I still had a question.

I remembered the blue skies of the morning, the way everything looked before the explosions and fires. I pointed to the roof of the Chantry. “Is the Maker up there?”

“Yes, my child,” Mother Elthina said in a reassuring way.

“And… my parents? Are they there too?” I had learned that screams turning to silence meant death.

“Yes,” she said.

“And my sister?”

And she hesitated. It was only for a moment, just a few seconds of wondering and thinking on the spot. I didn’t understand what she meant by the silence, but I could see the two templars looking at each other and then up at the sky, meeting my gaze. Mother Elthina took a breath and then let it out slowly. She looked to the great statue of Andraste in the back and then looked down at my scraped knees.

Her words, when they finally came, were calm and measured. “I don’t know.”

Then she smiled down at me, nodding her head in the direction of a door near the back of the Chantry. “You’ll live here in the Chantry now. We have a room for you. Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said, easing me off her lap so she could stand up. She took my hand in hers, trying to rub away at a few of the more obvious blood spots. I turned to watch the templars go, and when they opened the doors I saw the marketplace alive with people and noise and music, all against the backdrop of the beautiful blue sky.

The last thought I had before the doors swung shut and I became a ward of the Chantry is that I wished I could have shared the sky with Amelia, too.


	2. Mine Is To Rise

I heard the voice before I was even done processing what was going on. “Meredith Stannard, what are you doing?”

I looked down at the boy underneath me. He was bleeding from his nose and choking on his words but managed to get out one last taunt before he wriggled away. Finally resting on my knees, I took a few deep breaths. The red-hot anger started fading from my eyes and I closed them, trying to find a way to respond to Sister Katherine without screaming.

She didn’t wait for me to start talking again. “Come with me.” I peeled myself off the floor and started following her, brushing my hair behind my ears with a few shaking fingers. We walked through the hallways behind the Chantry, the ones I didn’t even know existed until I was living there. She started walking faster and I had an idea where she was going – the Grand Cleric’s office. Was I about to be thrown out of my home?

And suddenly, it was stopped. With a sigh of relief, I noticed Mother Elthina turning the corner, and her ever-observant eyes found my sticky fists still dripping blood on the brick floor. “Sister Katherine, what is going on?” she asked, and I looked down at the floor as I knew I was supposed to do.

“She was fighting again.” She sighed. “More like still – does she ever stop?”

Mother Elthina walked closer and took me by the hand. I wasn’t surprised – she never shied away from me, not even when I attacked other people for what some of the sisters believed was no reason. “Meredith, would you like to come and talk to me?” she asked with a glance towards Sister Katherine that I knew from experience was telling her to leave. Sister Katherine turned on her heel and left, returning to her post watching the smaller children as they played outside.

I followed Mother Elthina to her office, and I knew she would want me to sit in the chair across from her desk so she could see me properly. She was all about seeing, and she had an eerie ability to tell whether people were telling the truth just by looking at them. I sat in the chair and immediately began fidgeting and scratching the bits of blood off of my knuckles with my too-short nails.  
“Meredith,” she finally began, “Would you like to tell me what happened just now?”

Even though it was framed as a question, I knew it was an order. “I was getting ready to pray,” I started, hoping to appease her with this. Even she knew I wasn’t too fond of praying to the blank and nameless sky or to the statue of Andraste who never moved, never blinked, never did anything to help anyone. I went to services with the other children, but my mind always wandered to the goal I’d had in my head for a while. “John came up to me and told me I shouldn’t be praying because… well, because I’m an abomination.”

“You are not an abomination,” she said, but I didn’t believe it. I was related to one, and after what happened to Amelia, I would never again underestimate the power of blood. She looked like she was about to go into one of her sermons about how we cannot judge others, we can only judge ourselves, before she stopped. “You said this was John who told you this?”

“Yes, Mother. It was John.”

“But John is…”

“Bigger than me.” I knew what she was thinking – I was the too-skinny girl living on enough of a diet to grow but not enough to fill out with any bulk, and I didn’t gain several inches in height like some of the boys my age did in the past few years. I was in that awkward place between child and woman, and I was the same age as my sister was when she died. Fourteen, in the middle of child and adult, and not yet sure of my place.

“Meredith, if he… if John used his words, what compelled you to respond with your fists?”

“I don’t know. It just… happened,” I said, and when she looked into my eyes, she didn’t seem to find any fault with what I said. These things did just happen around me, and no matter how hard I tried to fit into the mold of a young Chantry sister whose friendship with a Mother could mean a more powerful position, I didn’t know how to do it.

“We need to figure something out to stop this from happening,” she chided gently.

“I… I think I might have an idea, if you want to listen,” I said, then blushed when I realized how rude I probably just sounded.

Mother Elthina smiled softly and asked, “What do you think will help?”

“I want to become a templar.” It was something I had thought of for years, a way of repaying the debt I could never hope to repay if I spent my whole life as a Chantry sister. Even if I worked my way up through the system, I could never do real change, or so I thought. I had never seen Mother Elthina or even the Grand Cleric acting directly against anyone, and templar lives were routinely lost in protecting them. I was not going to be the girl who everyone protected again. No one would die for me.

Mother Elthina sighed. “Meredith, you know as well as I that they don’t usually take women, especially women as young as yourself. And the job is dangerous, you know this. Templars risk their lives every day and if a templar dies, what have they accomplished? What will they have done with their lives?”

I thought for a moment, but not much longer. These thoughts had been stewing in my mind since my fourteenth birthday. When Amelia was fourteen, she had enough power to destroy my entire neighborhood and murder seventy people. I was fourteen – what would I be able to do? How could I reverse what she had done, or at least protect people if more mages tried to hurt them? “I know they might not want me, but I want to join. It’s what I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but I didn’t know how to say it. It’s not just because I get into fights, it’s that I want to make a difference. What am I going to do here my whole life, knowing that more blood mages are out there killing people and I’m just cowering in here?”

Belatedly, I realized that Mother Elthina was someone who chose to live her life inside the Chantry and get protected by others. “Not that it’s a bad thing,” I continued at an interesting look from her. “But templars can make meaning out of their lives. I can do something real, something to counteract what my sister did. She was fourteen when she killed all those people. Paul and Anne and Timothy and all of them – they died for nothing, they died because my sister’s idea of being a woman was to succumb. Mine is to rise, and I want to join the Templar Order.”

We sat in silence for several moments. I wasn’t sure if she was looking for me to continue or simply hoping I would realize the folly of my ideas. Finally, I said, “I have a goal. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I think what would make my life meaningful is to save seventy lives. One for each my sister took. Then we’re even, right? Then…” I didn’t voice what I thought next, but in a childish way, I was still hoping that my good deeds would be able to atone for her bad ones, that somehow, even though she had been dead for four years, that she might be able to be redeemed.

Mother Elthina looked at me for a long time after I finished speaking. She looked me up and down, from my curly blonde hair to my scuffed-up shoes before saying only one simple thing. “I will speak to the Knight-Commander on your behalf.” I stood up, bowed, and left the room, my heart lighter than it had been in a while. I was going to be a templar. Change for Kirkwall would start with me.


	3. Burning One Bridge to Build Another

It only took two days for the Knight-Commander to return to the Chantry. Templars came to the Chantry often enough that we started to get to know their faces and recognize who was more important or had a higher rank. The Knight-Commander was easy to pick out not only because of the templars who followed him at a measured pace, but also for the way his face always appeared in my dreams. His flaming red hair turned to real flames under the beautiful blue sky. His hair had been getting more silver in the past few years, but he was easily recognizable to me.

“Welcome, Knight-Commander,” Mother Elthina greeted him as I watched from behind a pillar. “May I have a word with you?” I watched his devotion as he put a few coins in the donation cup for the orphans living in the Chantry before he bowed to Mother Elthina and let her lead him away.

I had been planning for days how I was going to follow them and surprise them by interrupting the meeting and announcing my desires myself, but I began to lose courage as I stepped behind them. Neither of them noticed my presence as they kept walking down the hallway, and their conversation didn’t seem to go beyond the basic. I knew Mother Elthina could order the Knight-Commander around, so why wasn’t she?

They stepped into their office and Mother Elthina closed the door, but thankfully, it creaked open a few inches. I didn’t reveal myself quite yet, but I did sidle over towards the crack so I would be able to hear. I peeked in briefly to see him sitting in the chair I usually sat in when I visited Mother Elthina, and then I heard them talking. I waited with bated breath to hear what they were going to say about me, about my future.

“Knight-Commander, there is an orphan in the Chantry who wishes to begin training as a templar.” I thought this was all she was going to say at first, but she soon elaborated. “She is extremely dedicated to this idea and even though it may not be my personal preference, I will not stop her.”

“A girl? How old is she? Mother Elthina, you know the Order is not especially friendly to young women.” His tone didn’t sound patronizing, but I wished I could have seen his face. Looked into his eyes, like Mother Elthina.

“She is fourteen, but physically strong. Half the time I have to keep her fists out of the other children’s faces, most of them boys.”

He sighed gruffly. “Violence is not everything that it means to be a templar, Mother Elthina,” he said in what was probably trying to be a respectful tone, but it didn’t really work. I could tell he was frustrated – perhaps this was an issue he had to clarify multiple times?

“I understand, Guylian. All I am trying to say is that I don’t doubt her physical ability.”

“But you still have doubts,” he said, reading between the lines of her last statement.

“I do,” she confessed, and I took in a deep breath. She had never said this to me – in fact, we hadn’t even spoken after the conversation when I told her I wanted to be a templar in the first place. “She may not be doing this for the right reasons. I agree that she is not the best fit for the Chantry, but her feelings about mages are powerful, and quite negative.”

“Many templars have such feelings,” he probed. I could tell that he wanted to find out even more, dig into my mind even deeper.

It took Mother Elthina a few moments to reply. “I don’t know. She’s… she’s very intense about everything. She never does anything lightly. Her dedication is admirable, but I worry that if she joins the Order, she may take things too far.”

There was silence for a few moments in the room, and I began to doubt what they were thinking. Was this whole meeting an excuse to get the idea of becoming a templar out of my head? Burgeoning courage pushed me towards the door, and yet I was not prepared for the great creaking sound and the shock on the Knight-Commander’s face when he saw me at the door and Mother Elthina’s odd look implying that she might have known I was there all along.

“With all due respect, Mother Elthina, Knight-Commander, I… I was born to be a templar. I want to help and I want to change Kirkwall for the better. You, ser,” I faced the Knight-Commander tentatively, “saved my life and gave me this chance to pay you back. To pay back all the victims. I want to help you.” Then I thought about the fact that I was a girl, that the odds were stacked against me regardless of what I said. “I promise you I won’t whine or complain or say it’s too hard. I know what it is I’m signing up for and I still want it. I promise,” I let my words trail off into silence.

He stood up from his chair silently and approached me, looking me over. He turned to Mother Elthina. “This is the girl who can overpower the boys?”

“Yes, ser,” I said. “I’ll get bigger when I get older, I know I will.” I looked up at him with hopeful eyes, and he turned to Mother Elthina again.

“We have no female templars at the moment,” he said, and I could feel my heart falling. Would this simple fact be enough to make it impossible for me to become a templar? “We would have to make accommodations.” He paused to think. “There is a supply closet near the armory. If we could clean it out…” He turned to me. “Look, it wouldn’t be easy. Girls in the Templar Order are not easily accepted, but with the viscount breathing down my neck, I’m always looking for new recruits…”

“I’ll live in the closet, ser,” I said, even before he could finish his last sentence. “I would be so grateful.”

He looked at Mother Elthina and down at me before clapping me on the shoulder and walking out the door with a respectful nod in Mother Elthina’s direction. “Come follow me, Meredith,” he said, and that was when I realized he had never asked my name.


	4. Templars and Tranquility

I had never been to the Gallows before that day, and I knew I would never forget the feeling of looking up at the grand statues of the men in chains that were tied together at the bottom to prevent merchant ships from getting into the city. “It’s crippling us,” the Knight-Commander remarked to me as we traveled to the shore near the area where all the mages were kept, and where the templar garrison was. “I’m sure even you felt it at the Chantry. It feels like we’re under siege.”

“What’s happening, ser?”

“Viscount Threnhold died rather recently – ”

“Yes, we all gathered to pray for his soul,” I interjected.

He waited for a moment to make sure I was done talking, and I felt guilty for interrupting him. I was about to apologize before he started speaking again. “His son Perrin has assumed his position. He is no friend to templars or the Chantry. We are all hoping he’ll lift his father’s trade restrictions.”

I had the feeling he was trying to test my intelligence or see if I was following along. “But ser,” I asked, “won’t he want the city to grow? How will it grow if nothing can come in?”

“Good question,” he asked, and I began to feel minimally proud of myself. “He wishes for total control. Our city is a balance of forces between the Chantry, the templars, and the government – and he wants to hoard the power. If he takes it all – ”

“There’s none left for us – or anyone else,” I added, wondering why he was telling me this. “Is this important for me to know?” I asked.

“I want you to understand that our city rests in a balance. The Chantry protects our faith, the templars protect us from the mages, the government protects us from foreign governments. As you probably remember, if anything goes out of balance, things will not be safe.”

“I understand,” I said, looking up at the two statues and wondering how the embargo would affect the balance. Would it really ruin it like he said? I hoped not. Even though it was not a safe job, I was hoping to at least be able to train safely.

The boat finally docked at the shore of the Gallows, and the Knight-Commander hopped out of the boat more nimbly than I thought he would be able to with all his armor. He reached a hand down into the boat and pulled me up, and I got my first look at my new home. There were templars milling around everywhere, and then – with a bit of a shock – I saw that there were a fair number of mages being led around. There were so many people and I couldn’t tell what was going on, who was going where, or why the mages were loitering around for no seeming reason.

I hadn’t seen a real mage in years – or at least a mage who was actively practicing magic. I had never seen the Circle robes before, multicolored fabrics billowing out on generally slim bodies. I wondered about the food they were having, what they got to do, how often they came outside like this – and how many of them had seen demons. I shuddered at the thought that all the adult mages had taken the Circle test that was supposed to involve demons in some way. It was always what my parents said would be too hard for Amelia, that would kill her. I wondered how all these people could be stronger than her.

“Knight-Commander,” I heard a voice and looked up at the speaker. He was a few inches taller than me and also dressed in templar armor.

“Report, Aaron,” he responded.

The younger man looked at me before he started speaking. “The First Enchanter is still ill, so some of the senior enchanters had to focus on his treatment instead of teaching their classes.”

“And that is why all these mages are outside?”

“Yes, ser,” he said with a small salute. Then he looked down at me again. “Who is this?”

“A new recruit, Meredith Stannard.”

His face got noticeably friendlier and he reached out his hand to shake mine. “Welcome,” he said with a smile, shifting out of his professional tone and into something more congenial.

“Thank you, Ser Aaron,” I tried to sound confident. This was one of my brothers-in-arms, and I felt the need to befriend him.

“It’s Knight-Captain,” the Knight-Commander commented. “Or it will be as soon as I get approval from the viscount.”

“You need approval from the viscount?” I asked as we began walking towards a large building with two sets of steps running up the sides. I traversed the steps slowly, my eyes wandering towards all the people I could see.

“Unfortunately, yes,” the Knight-Commander said, but Aaron didn’t seem to be fazed much by the statement.

“It’s worth the wait,” he said with a grin. He loped up the steps with an easy grace, and both his and the Knight-Commander’s armor clanked as they walked.

“Does it hurt?” I tried to ask nonchalantly, hoping the Knight-Commander would take this as a question rather than a complaint.

“You’ll find out soon enough” was his response, and before we reached the top of the steps, he turned to Ser Aaron. “The closet near the armory needs to be cleared out for Stannard’s things. Move in a cot, armor dummy, chamber pot.” He looked at me to see if I was balking, so I kept my gaze straight ahead. I was fine with whatever would happen – but a bit embarrassed that the Knight-Commander and his future second-in-command were talking about a chamber pot for me.

“Consider it done,” Ser Aaron responded, and opened the door with a smile. I let the Knight-Commander walk in first, and then wanted to wait for Ser Aaron. He angled his head to let me know to walk, but I felt strange walking in before him. Now that I was actually at the Gallows, it felt strange to be the newcomer. It was like when I had first arrived at the Chantry – I was more of a novelty than a child to some of the people, and it had taken me a while to learn the customs of the new group I had found myself in. This was going to be different, though, I decided. I was going to walk into this place like I owned it.

“Follow me,” the Knight-Commander said, and I hurried to catch up with his larger gait. “Armory – and your room – is this way.” I turned around and saw Ser Aaron following us, using his arm to motion for another templar to join him. “You’ll see that later – for now, I’m going to get you set up with training armor and a training weapon. This way,” he called again as he turned left down a long hallway.

Before we could reach the room which I could tell was the armory from the metallic smell and banging noises, a mage stepped out in front of me. I instinctively wrapped my hands in front of myself, holding onto my elbows. I tried not to let out a sound.

“Knight-Commander,” the mage said, I was surprised to see that the mage was clearly a girl, and her robe looked slightly different – fancier, maybe – than the other robes I had seen.

“Enchanter,” he responded, then thought of something. “I thought you were working on the First Enchanter today.”

“I’m just looking for some more supplies.” She paused and seemed to shuffle around awkwardly. “Roderick was helping me.”

“Ah, yes, he should be good at that,” the Knight-Commander said, and I noticed the way the mage froze when he said this. It wasn’t too noticeable, but for someone used to sitting for long hours on the steps outside of the Chantry to observe the city, I could see the way she was standing stiffly and not moving even a drop, taking in cautious breaths to avoid attention. I looked to the Knight-Commander, but he didn’t seem to notice, instead telling me to keep following him.

I started to feel quite curious about who this person was, why he apparently stressed out this particular mage who definitely looked important. “Erm… who is Roderick?” I asked as he was about to open the door.

“He’s inside,” the Knight-Commander said and opened the door. I felt slapped in the face with a leathery smell mixed with something metallic, before I even took a good look around. “She needs training gear,” the Knight-Commander called out, and almost immediately, two men appeared from behind some armor displays.

I didn’t notice too much as the armorer measured me and tried to figure out what kind of armor would suit me best. I didn’t listen to the few words he spoke; most referred to measurements or other things that would mean nothing to me. Instead, I looked at the man to the left, the one holding the surplus materials and wandering back and forth to grab more things without so much as one word. He was wearing the robes of a mage, but he had a bright yellow sunburst – the symbol of the Chantry – etched onto his forehead. It glowed with magical energy.

“Is he a mage?” I tried to ask surreptitiously, but the man heard and replied before I could say anything else.

“I was,” he said in a monotone voice, as if his mouth didn’t know how to give inflections to different sounds.

This idea shocked me. How could someone be a mage and then stop being one? Was there a cure for magic? I had seen a few people with sunbursts on their foreheads, but I had never approached one, and the Chantry sisters always told us to not stare. Now, though, I was definitely staring, and I was broken out of my thoughts by the annoyed grumbling of the armorer. “What, never seen a Tranquil before?”

“Tranquil?” I asked, then turned to the Knight-Commander. “Is there a way to cure magic?”

He looked away from me. “I’ll explain later,” he said in a commanding tone. I didn’t hear another word from him until the armorer declared that he was done and handed me a heavy bundle of plates and a standard-issue sword. Even as I took it, I wondered if there was a way for me to use a sword like the Knight-Commander did. “Roderick?” the Knight-Commander said, and the odd mage came and took the armor out of my hands and walked a few steps ahead of me until he reached the closet door. The Knight-Commander opened it, but it was Roderick who spoke first.

“I trust this is to your satisfaction,” he said in the same odd voice. I wondered if the odd voice was part of the cure for magic – did this mean that Amelia could have lived, just without her normal voice, starting out strong and then shaking, shaking as she got more afraid. Afraid to walk, talk, even breathe anymore.

In the room there was a simple cot with a pillow and blanket resting atop it, a dummy that Roderick was dressing with the armor as I still kept watching him, and a small pail in the corner. “Thank you,” I said to both men in the room, and when Roderick left, the Knight-Commander put his hand on my shoulder.

“Have you never seen one of the Tranquil before, Stannard?” I was ashamed and wondered if he had caught me staring. I shook my head. “They’re mages who were deemed too weak to complete the Harrowing. Their test,” he explained.

“My parents said…” I hesitated, then tried to continue. I needed to know. “They said that my sister Amelia wouldn’t have been able to do the tests in the Circle. They said she wouldn’t have a chance.”

There was a strange look in the Knight-Commander’s eyes. Pity, perhaps? Or scorn? I couldn’t tell. “Tranquility is not a solution I generally recommend, Stannard. It’s a hard decision to make. There is no reversing the process and once a mage becomes Tranquil, they lose all of themselves that they used to be before.”

“What do you mean?”

“You probably noticed Roderick spoke in a very steady voice and didn’t seem to have any feelings in any way about taking orders or carrying your things. It’s because he has no mind of his own. His body functions, but his mind has essentially been locked away.” I let out a gasp, imagining my sister not being able to think for herself, to do things for herself, just because of her magic. “Some say it is a greater curse than the magic. Not all templar decisions are easy, Stannard – it’s easy when you see an abomination killing everyone, but what do you do with the apprentice who accidentally lights someone on fire? What about the enchanter who has a perfect record and then sneaks out one night to do Maker-knows-what? Those are the decisions that really matter,” he said, and with a clap of his hand on my shoulder, he closed the door.


	5. The Girl Who Could Fight

I sat on my new bed for a long time, not even having the distraction of a window like the back rooms in the Chantry always provided. I sat open-mouthed for a while, contemplating the different shades of grey that he had talked about. I paced around the small space, walking from the head of the bed to the foot, thinking and puzzling. I tried on the armor, figuring out where the different pieces went and how to walk and how to pick up the sword. It was clear that I would need a lot more time, but the idea of turning a mage into an obedient servant was something I hadn’t even expected. It was not the physical feeling of the armor, in other words, that gave me discomfort.

A sharp rap at the door alerted me that it was time for dinner, and when I opened it, I found several templars in various kinds of armor. Some looked like me in simpler padded armor, and a few had added helmets and gauntlets. There were only four men, but they seemed to be observing me with the intent that I was observing Roderick before.

“I’m not an exhibit in a museum,” I snapped and closed the door.

At first, no one responded, but then one boy with dark hair and a sneer on his face approached. “We don’t have girls here, you know. We don’t let ‘em.”

“Well, now you do,” I replied in an equally snarky voice – or at least I tried to. One of the templars laughed.

“Come on, Otto, leave her alone,” a red-headed boy responded. They looked about the same age, a few years older than me.

“I’m just having a bit of fun,” he said, and got closer. I stretched out my hands.

“I can take you in a fight,” I tried to say confidently, but clearly he didn’t get the message.

He turned to his fellows. “This little girl thinks she can take me in a fight,” he laughed, but the laughter began to die down when I clenched my fists. “And now she’s gonna try to – hey!” he jumped back as I swung forward. My lack of balance in the armor made me wobble on my feet, and the dark-haired boy simply laughed and walked away. “Squirt’s not worth my time.”

After wobbling for a few moments, I felt a hand on my forearm. It was the red-headed boy, and even though he was looking wistfully at his fellows, he wasn’t leaving. “Thank you,” I said softly.

“Don’t take Otto seriously, he’s like that to everyone. When I was new he used to threaten to pound my face into the flagstones, and he only really meant it twice. I’m Thrask,” he said, reaching out his other hand to steady me.

“Meredith – I’m new to wearing armor,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t think I was a total dunce. At least he was being nice to me.

“The other guys aren’t that bad. I’ve been here four years now, and with all the time that it takes us to train, we don’t have too much time to fight amongst ourselves. Mess hall’s this way,” he pointed, and I started walking in step with him.

“Who are the others?” I asked, trying to get an idea of who I would be working with over my lifetime.

“Emeric and Samson were the two others here. Samson’s pretty good, he should be getting his shield soon. Emeric’s a decent guy. Overthinks things.”

“Which is more than we can say for Otto,” I tried to joke.

“Indeed,” he said as we walked. It didn’t take us long to get to the mess hall, and once we got there, I saw more food than I had ever seen in my life. Every templar in the room had bread and a thick stew with meat and vegetables floating in it. “Dig in,” he said and sat down next to me. It was unusual to have someone be kind – my reputation often preceded me, or rather, I should say my family’s reputation made it nearly impossible to be seen as anything but the girl whose sister had blown up half of Midtown. Alone in my bed that night, I forgot about everything but the scratchy pillowcase under my head and the voices of the templars outside my door and the rhythmic banging in the armory that carried me into sleep.

I was awakened for training the next morning and arrived to find the other templars all in their training armor, fighting against dummies and some sparring against each other. Ser Aaron was in charge of the new recruits who were not yet templars. He tolerated me, tolerated my request to learn more about the broadsword and forego all shield training to spend my time working my small arms to the point where they could hold a broadsword nearly as tall as me without shaking, quivering, dropping the sword onto the flagstones or my own foot.

No matter how much I tried, there was always the idea that because I was a woman, I couldn’t possibly be good at fighting. It was true that I lost many of my first sparring matches, but at the same time, I was the newest recruit, and I had the most motivation to succeed. I found few friends, so the remainder of my time was spent running around outside in armor, balancing on one foot, swinging the sword at canvas dummies until their straw bellies exploded.

It was the kind of dedication I was never able to prove at the Chantry. Although punching other children may not have been the best way to express it, I had no way to demonstrate my passion for becoming a templar otherwise. I had been thinking about it for years, and even though I knew I was going to be a recruit with as many factors as possible against me, I hoped that the Chantry would at least be tolerant.

Nevertheless, I was uncertain about how Mother Elthina and the sisters who had taken care of me for the past four years – not to mention the Grand Cleric, whose presence still scared me because of how few and far between her words were – were going to take the fact that I had joined the Templar Order.

The templars went to the Chantry every week to pray, but recruits had special classes with the Chantry sisters to explain the tenets of religion that most people hadn’t learned growing up. My own family had not been religious, but living in the Chantry for four years meant that I expected to be one of the top students. I didn’t know what kind of reaction I would get from the sisters, the orphans, or even the rest of the congregation, but it was most certainly unsettling to come back so soon after I left.

Walking through the doors felt odd, especially since I had only been living in the supply closet for a few days and hadn’t acclimated to the new routine. This time when I entered the large cathedral, I entered in the company of Otto, Thrask, Emeric, and the other recruits instead of the other orphans. Instead of the tittering of strangers and their pity-filled voices greeting me, I heard the praise of the sisters for the templars, the people who kept everyone safe. The Knight-Commander made a speech. And then we were turned over to a few Revered Mothers to undergo our weekly lesson.

This first lesson was about mages, as I assumed it would be. We read the Chant aloud several times, drilling into my head the following verses: Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him. / Foul and corrupt are they / Who have taken His gift / And turned it against His children. / They shall be named Maleficar, accursed ones. / They shall find no rest in this world / Or beyond.

I thought of my sister then. A maleficar. A blood mage who had used her blood to summon a demon. I wondered what kind of demon she had summoned. I could still see it behind my eyelids when I slept and in front of the burlap dummies when I fought. But what mattered to me was the end. She found no rest in the world. Her remains were not kept in the city; they were shipped out to be buried in the wilderness, the head apart from the body, in case any more demons got any more brilliant ideas. Burning the body might have been a better idea for this, but she did not deserve the honor of a funeral pyre. 

And no rest in the beyond. The Canticle of Transfigurations haunted me. My sister was not a frightened girl my own age who had succumbed to the fear. She was accursed. She had summoned a demon and murdered people, which meant she was a maleficar, which meant she would not find any sort of rest. Mother Elthina looked into my eyes as she read the phrase. This was her way to tell me, four years later, what she had known all along: My parents were with the Maker. The sixty-eight other victims were, as well. But Amelia had gone to the Void, irredeemable. She was simply too far gone to save, even for the supposedly ever-loving Maker who had created us all.

That night, I stayed up, taking out a broadsword and running with it until my heart felt like it would burst and my legs burned and ached from the repetitive movements and my arms sagged and my breath caught in my throat. I stayed out until I could see the sun’s rays beginning to rise, until I could feel the warmth of the beginning of a new day.

I scarcely had time to shower before another full day of training. Other recruits commented on my bruises, but the leaders noticed more that I was carrying the broadsword more confidently, that I was more sure of my steps in armor, that I could behead a training dummy in one hit instead of two. 

It was at that time that I became a threat, someone to be wary of. I might have still been the girl, but I was the girl who could fight.


	6. Add Grief to the List

Thrask became a quick ally among my fellow recruits, and even though Samson was granted his sun shield by the Knight-Commander not long after I started training, he still kept in contact with us. I became accustomed to Otto’s threats against life and limb, and Emeric’s odd habits that resembled a detective more than a soldier. He was useful, though – I was particularly impressed when, on one of my first patrols, he managed to track a criminal from Lowtown all the way into Midtown – into my old neighborhood.

It had been my first time since that day so many years ago that I had found myself in Midtown, the unusually small neighborhood where the merchants lived when they packed up their stalls from the marketplace and went home to their families. Not too rich or too poor, Midtown was an area where everything seemed to be normal, and no one really moved in or out. It was a stable place, generally considered a good place to raise a child. And in the years since Amelia, about half of the surviving families had moved out, and there were only a few people left who would recognize me or remember my name.

It was my fate to meet one of them. Emeric was hot on the trail of the thief and didn’t stop to listen to my protests. Samson, leading the group as a new templar, could only ask, “You guys always want to get out of the Gallows, and then it’s a patrol and you want to run crying home to your mommies?” I could tell that he was thinking of me even as he walked in front of me. Because I was a girl, of course, I couldn’t possibly want anything but a hug from a female caregiver.

“Speak for yourself,” I shot back, kicking at the loose stones on the ground as I walked through the neighborhood. I hated the idea that I might be recognized. I hated the idea that someone might know who I was, remember my past, my shame. I would never be able to escape the shame, I realized – no matter how often I went to this neighborhood and protected people, I would still be seen as the – 

“Stannard?” Thrask asked me, and I turned around so quickly that the pommel of the sword on my back whacked me in the back of my head.

“What?” I asked, holding a hand to my head, trying to stop the throbbing. There was no use in complaining – if I was being clumsy, even if I had a good motive, no one would listen to me. No matter how hard I trained, I was still the girl, which never ended well.

“That woman’s staring at you,” he said.

My heart lurched. “You might be wrong – she might be staring at us in general. Maybe templar patrols of this area aren’t regular,” I said, even though I knew they generally were. I had so many opportunities as a child to tell the templars about my sister, and thinking about the frequency of the patrols only reminded me of my own failure. That was what I knew it to be at that point – there was nothing right about having sympathy for an apostate, at least not according to the Chantry or the senior templars.

“She’s coming over,” he said, but I could tell that just as easily. My eyes didn’t leave her, and it wasn’t long before I saw her face. A mother from the neighborhood, someone who used to spend time playing outside with her little daughter. I remembered my mother talking about how hard it had been for this woman to have a child, how her only daughter meant the world to her.

“Are you Meredith Stannard?” she asked when she got closer, her voice tentative and hesitant.

“Yes,” I said, not sure where this was going or what she was going to say next.

Her eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t know you survived,” she said softly, reaching out a hand and placing it on my shoulder. Even though I had armor on, I could still feel her touch, soft and delicate. I remembered, in that moment, that she had been particularly good at making sweet cakes she gave out to the neighborhood children. I could smell the cinnamon in the air.

“I did…” I said, not sure of what to say next. Did her family survive? It was entirely my fault if they didn’t. It occurred to me that at no point in my four years in the Chantry did I check the list of the victims, come to terms with the legacy of my dead sister.

“My mother did. My husband and…Olivia didn’t,” she choked, leaning on me for comfort. She looked into my eyes. I was about her height, and she was looking at me like an adult. Not like the child who people hide the truth from, concealing it under sweet words of protection and the Maker.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, unsure of what else I could do.

“He was bringing home a loaf of bread. I was going to make us a meal… and Olivia ran outside to meet him… and then the demon…”

“Demon?” Thrask’s voice interjected. I had almost forgotten he was there. Samson and Emeric were, thankfully, a few houses down.

“I watched. I could never let her do anything without permission – even die.” I could see her grief and even though I hadn’t seen it, or perhaps I just hadn’t been paying attention, I saw the little girl running out to meet her father, not looking at the fire or the devastation or the dead bodies. In her eyes there was nothing wrong, and she had died with the taste in her mouth of the sweet bread she would not live to eat.

“I… I’m sorry,” I said again. 

“Did you know?” she asked rather abruptly. “That she was a mage. Did you know?”

“Yes, but my parents told me – ”

“You knew,” she started to cry again. “You knew she was a mage and you did nothing.”

“I was a little girl,” I tried to defend myself, even though I knew that to this woman there was nothing I could say to heal what my inaction had done.

“No, you weren’t. My daughter… my daughter was a little girl. You were old enough to know better. And now you’re a templar,” I wondered what was coming next. I wasn’t in the formal armor quite yet, but I was on the templar patrol route with other templars, so clearly she knew I was heading down this path. “Know when to kill next time,” she said in a hushed voice, and rushed off towards home.

I almost didn’t notice Thrask at my side when the woman scampered off. She opened her door and disappeared into her house – the same one, I noticed, that she had lived in when her family was whole – and it took a few taps on my shoulder for me to notice he was trying to get my attention. “What was that about?” he asked.

“It’s nothing,” I tried to say, but I knew he wouldn’t take that for an answer. Thrask might not have been conniving like Otto or sniffing out clues for a living like Emeric, but he had a brain in his head, and he was bound to have noticed what was going on.

“Didn’t sound like nothing. Do you know her?”

“I did, when I was a child,” I said.

“You know, I’ve never heard you talk about your parents. Your family.”

“She’s not my family, if that’s what you were thinking,” I blurted out, then wondered how I was going to tell him the rest. And whether he was going to be my friend after I told him anything else. “My sister was a mage. My parents hid her, and a lot of people died.”

He looked shocked. “You never said anything about – ”

“There’s a reason for that,” I bit back. I tried to sound a bit calmer when I spoke again, hoping to sway him with my words. “I was ten years old. I didn’t know any better. If I could go back…” And I stopped. I had thought about this many times – what would I do if I could go back? Tell my sister to harden herself or drag her towards the Chantry? I could never harm her, I knew that, but perhaps I could find a templar… it was pointless thinking. The past was in the past.

Thrask stood silently, staring at me as I pondered. “What are you going to do about it?” he asked, guiding me away from the woman’s house. I could see her staring at me through the window, drawing the drapes to a close as I walked away. Samson and Emeric were coming back this way, and I grabbed onto Thrask’s arm.

“Please don’t tell them,” I said, then quickly explained my plan. “I want to save seventy lives. One for each my sister took,” I whispered, hoping he would approve enough to not out me to the whole group. The last thing I needed was to become not only the girl of the group of templars, but also the charity case who sympathized with mages. I could overcome “girl,” but “mage sympathizer” would stick with me for life – or at least, I believed so.

“Seventy?” His face paled as he looked at me, but then he sighed. “Do you even know their names? Their lives? Did you know her daughter?”

“I did… I’ll look up their names in the Chantry records. Will you help me?”

“All right,” he said with a dubious tone.

“That sounds like a fine idea, Thrask,” I said in a louder voice as Samson entered into earshot.

“What are you two up to? I saw a woman over here with you?” he asked, his tone light but curious. And he was most definitely not a stupid man – he would pick up on what was happening immediately unless – 

“We’re going to the Chantry. This neighborhood suffered some losses and is looking for healing, and we’re going to do some research. Stannard and I,” he said, with a raise of one of his eyebrows. I heaved a sigh of relief.

Samson looked back and forth between us, unsure of what was going on. “You can stop by there on your way back. There’s nothing going on here, this is always a quiet neighborhood. No action for years. Easy patrol.” He strolled ahead as Thrask and I stayed a few paces behind, together.

When we reached the Chantry and opened the double doors and found our way to the archives in the back, Thrask and I were silent as we worked. Before long, I had copied the list of deaths – all seventy of them, including my parents, onto a piece of parchment provided by one of the sisters for what we told her was important templar business. And it was – I knew I would make it my life’s work to put a name next to each of the ones I had just written down, a life for a life. I would save people, and my work would be done.

Being a templar wasn’t nearly so simple, I came to learn. After four years of training and jumping to the top of my age group thanks to a combination of dedication and training until absurdly late hours of the night, I was going to be ordained as a templar and getting my sun shield from Knight-Commander Guylian. I had yet to see any action or go on anything more than a simple patrol, and Thrask often volunteered to take my place on Midtown patrols. I was grateful, but never told him. Not because I wasn’t grateful, but because I was simply too afraid – afraid to face my past honestly; it was easier to scribble down names on spare pieces of parchment in the supply closet in the dark than come out in the open with my story, with my name, with my past.

Inevitably, it came out. There was no way it wasn’t going to, and though it was no fault of Thrask’s, I was angry at him for several days. I didn’t sit near him at the mess hall or even speak to him while training; I simply sparred with others and tried to get my anger out. I heard the whispers and saw the stares and nothing but the presence of my list was enough to quiet them.


	7. Harrowing for Both of Us

For four years, the whispers and the stares followed me because I was a female – and now they followed me as a mage sympathizer. As much as some people respected my fighting skills, others questioned how well I would be able to obey orders when the time came, whether I would be able to deal a killing blow to a mage when I had hidden one myself. They questioned, when I looked into the eyes of my charges who I had been looking over as part of my duties for the four years since I had moved to the Gallows, whether I would be able to put past and emotion and everything aside and thrust my sword forward.

The first time someone hissed “mage-lover” at me when I walked by, completely oblivious to the fact that I had seen this exact man trying to seduce a mage himself, I left the training yard and went to the Knight-Commander’s office personally.

There was already someone there, someone I didn’t recognize, but I knew the livery he was wearing. It resembled the viscount’s personal seal, and from the way the Knight-Commander’s voice carried through the wooden door, I gathered that there was some kind of significant conversation going on there. When the door swung open, I bowed to both men before requesting an audience.

“Thank you, Stannard,” he sighed after the other man left and I shut the door.

“Who was he?” I asked, not caring in that moment about impropriety.

“He was here from the viscount. Economic matters – nothing you’d find interesting,” he shut me down. I bowed my head politely, and he spoke up again. “Is there something you needed to talk to me about?”

“I… I’m not sure how protocol works on this matter, but I would like to attend a Harrowing.” I had thought about it for a while. The Harrowing, the intense test a mage had to take in which they had to directly speak to a demon and reject their offer, was a rite of passage for mages and templars alike.

He looked at me carefully, perhaps trying to analyze my motives. “A Harrowing? They are… difficult,” he said slowly. “There’s no telling what might happen. It’s a lot for a templar to go through, and you’re not ordained yet.”

“I’m ready,” I said, and I spoke the truth. I wanted to know more about this test, I wanted to see what the mage would look like as they spoke to the demon, but more than anything, I wanted to see what would happen to the mage when they woke up. Would their dreams be haunted like mine were? Would they too remember the voice of the demon, thick and heady, in the moments when they were alone?

“Stannard, I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Thrask went on one. The mage survived.”

“Thrask has been in training for longer,” he retorted.

“I’m not bad, is it? Oh,” I started to bring up, “is this because I’m a woman? Because I’m not as strong?”

“I never said that. Your performance in training is admirable, as is your dedication, but… let me see what I can do, all right? I’ll find something safe. Soon – but for now, I need to work on this paperwork,” he said gently, and when I left the room, I had no doubt that I would not be seeing a Harrowing for a very long time.

I was quite surprised, then, when one of the senior enchanters found me on door duty the following week and told me to return that night in the Harrowing Chamber. I wasn’t sure what to bring or what to do or even what my role was going to be – I would probably be standing by the back wall and watching – but when I arrived in full armor that I was finally skilled in bearing, the Knight-Commander said something I wasn’t expecting at all.

“Stannard will be holding the blade.” The other templar, someone who had been ordained a few years before and who I wasn’t particularly close with, raised an eyebrow.

“Are you sure, Knight-Commander? I don’t doubt your decision, but Stannard…”

“I am sure,” he said. “It is her first Harrowing, after all. We have traditions,” he replied, and finally explained what he meant. “The mage will be arriving here in a few moments along with the First Enchanter. After the ceremony ends, you will be responsible for holding your sword over the mage’s throat. If she is possessed, you will be the first responsible to kill her. Do you accept this responsibility?”

“I accept,” I said, but my hand shook as I heard footsteps from down the hall. The Circle’s tower had unusually creaky steps, so I could hear both mages as they approached, bowing as they reached the Knight-Commander and the two of us.

“Knight-Commander,” the First Enchanter said politely, showing the mage in through the door. She was elven, small, and her smile was a mixture of nervous anticipation and excitement. Harrowed mages had far more privileges, after all – clearly she was excited for it. She pulled her hair back with her hand and tied it with a leather thong as she peeked into the room that was empty save for a long table, a large stone basin, and torches set around the room flashing brilliantly.

“First Enchanter. I assume everything went well?” he said, then gave the mage a small smile. “And you, Jenara? Are you ready?”

“I think so, ser,” she said shyly as she stepped behind the First Enchanter, hiding behind his aging form.

“Then let us begin,” Guylian said before launching into a speech he had probably said dozens of times before. “As the Chant of Light says, magic is to serve man, not to rule over him. Thus far in your studies, you have been discouraged from interacting with the Fade in any other way than learning how to cast your magic. Tonight, you will be sent into the Fade with nothing and you will face a demon. Refuse its offer, and you will have won your place among the enchanters of the Kirkwall Circle of Magi. Do you understand?”

“A demon?” she squeaked.

“We’ve all done it, Jenara. Me as well,” the First Enchanter said supportively as he stroked his beard.

“What if I – what if it tries to hurt me?”

Knight-Commander Guylian took a step closer to the quaking mage. In the firelight, she looked younger than her years, like a child being thrown into the abyss. “If you are uncomfortable to do this task, there is another option.” He didn’t have to say what the other option was.

“I will do it,” she said after several moments of thinking. “I don’t want to be Tranquil. I want to be alive,” she said in what was probably the most confident tone she could muster under the circumstances.

“Very well. It is also my duty to inform you that Meredith Stannard,” I picked up my head upon hearing my name and met the mage’s eyes, “will be performing the sacred duty of holding the sword. If you linger too long in the Fade or allow a demon to possess you, it is her sword that will take your life. Remember that,” he said sternly, then gestured for her to walk through the door.

I followed, and as the Knight-Commander read some sections from the Chant and the First Enchanter whispered sweet words of encouragement in the girl’s ear, I prepared my sword. I twirled it around, then held it very still, noticing how much brighter the steel looked under the firelight. And, when everything that needed to be said was out, the First Enchanter brought out a large vial of lyrium, much larger than any I’d ever seen.

“See you soon,” he whispered to Jenara as she reached a hand down, touched the lyrium, and the First Enchanter cast some sort of spell. Jenara fell to the floor and as soon as she hit the ground, Guylian picked her up and put her on the table.

“Over here, Stannard,” he called, and I approached, looking down at the mage. She looked so peaceful, she could have been asleep.

“Hold your sword out, like this.” He grasped the edge of my blade and arranged it so it hovered a few inches over the mage’s throat. “And now we wait,” he said.

The waiting felt like an eternity. I knew it must have been late at night since it was common knowledge that mages were taken from their beds for the ceremony, but I lost all meaning of time. Every task seemed so minor, so minute, compared to holding the sword at that perfect angle above the girl’s neck. Her chest moved so slightly, it didn’t even seem like she was breathing. Her eyelids didn’t twitch like a normal face in sleep. I noticed a gap between her two front teeth that made her breath whistle just a bit when she inhaled.

The First Enchanter paced. Guylian kept his eye on me as he rekindled the torches – no one was allowed to do magic in the room while a Harrowing was going on. The dome-shaped room made each of his steps echo and every time I made even the smallest movement, I could hear the plates of my armor rattling as they resettled. We waited in silence a long time. Guylian approached the mage and looked at her, seeking some sign I didn’t know. He lifted her eyelid after a particularly long moment of waiting and put it down when he saw the brown eye beneath its sheath.

And, suddenly, everything happened at once.

Jenara’s eyes snapped open. Not brown but red, her fingers dancing with electricity. “Lower the sword!” I heard, but before I could even move, there was an explosion and I was flung against the wall. I could feel my ribs burning, coughing and sputtering to try to get some breath as the mage stood, her short hair on edge, shooting a large fireball at the First Enchanter, whose eyes were wet with tears and hardened with resolve – 

Guylian leapt in front of the vulnerable enchanter, protecting the man with his shield angled down. The flame collided with the floor and a heat wave emanated from the scorched area on the ground. “Stannard, get down!” he yelled before pulling out his sword and trying to get closer to the body that had once housed the soul of Jenara the mage. Each moment, it mutated farther away from her appearance.

The demon raised its arms and half a dozen shades erupted out of the ground. The other templar in the room pulled out his sword and, in what felt almost automatic, I swung my sword at the shade closest to me. Even though its form was incorporeal, I could feel my blade slicing through something not quite air and not quite flesh and the shadow collapsed to the ground. Empowered, I ran towards the next one as I watched Guylian fend off three of them plus the demon itself.

There was nothing to do but go for it. I waited for the demon’s back to face me, waited for it to snarl at Guylian and go for him. The First Enchanter sent out a lightning bolt and I felt my armor begin to fry but I darted forward, sword in hand, digging it into the demon’s stomach.

She fell down in one moment, and in another, she closed her eyes and opened them again. Brown. Blood leaked from the corners of her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she wheezed in a death-rattle.

“Stannard,” Guylian said calmly.

I looked away and ignored the humanity behind the bloodied face. My second sword-stroke ended her life.

“Damn,” he said as soon as Jenara’s body lay prostrate on the ground and the blood had stopped to flow. “I thought she was a good one.”

“I did as well. It’s such a pity,” the First Enchanter said. “Such a skilled mage, such a good healer…”

“I trust you can handle the burial?” Guylian asked as he picked up a rag from a pile I hadn’t noticed before to start cleaning his sword. The First Enchanter nodded solemnly. “Let’s leave him,” Guylian said softly, and I left the room along with my fellow templar. The door boomed as it closed shut.

“I thought she’d be an easy one. Either of you injured?” he said as his eyes swept over our armor. “Both of you look like you need to take your armor to the Tranquil, to begin with.” I pictured Roderick, the Tranquil in charge of the armory. How docile he sounded, how peaceful. Just like Jenara had looked in her final sleep before the demon set in.

“I think I may have bruised some ribs, but I can still fight.”

“I can see that. It wasn’t a mistake to have you in there,” he said.

“I apologize… when the mage’s eyes opened, I didn’t react quickly enough. I could have saved a lot of time and trouble.”

“Few can react that quickly. For most mages, the threat of the sword is enough to make them turn away from the demon. And I won’t forget that you killed it.”

I almost corrected him. I almost wanted to say “her,” to say that there had been a mage under there, that even at the end she was human again. But I wondered – was she really herself at the end? Or was it the shade trying for another foothold in the world of the living?

Guylian spoke again. “Soon. You will be knighted soon. You’re readier than I thought.”

I had never felt less ready. I stayed in the Circle for the rest of the night, not leaving even when the First Enchanter dragged the body, covered by a sheet, into the hall. Not when the senior enchanters, all the members of the different political factions who disagreed all the time, joined together. They stood in a circle and mourned the one of their own who had fallen. Four knelt and set the sheet on fire. Then they turned away, collecting books and candelabras and going about their way. One had died, but the rest must live. They must fight, fight against that inevitable transformation of theirs that would take away everything.


	8. An Oath That Won't Be Broken

It turned out that being a templar was not just about the fighting. It was about believing, more than anything else in the world, that the Chant of Light was true, that the Chantry was the place from where guidance flowed freely. It was equally as much about the belief.

It was what I concentrated on when I was in the Chantry for what I believed would be my last night sleeping there, in the long vigil before the ceremony in which I would be named a templar. With the addition of Ser to my name and lyrium to my blood, I would become a weapon, something suitable of redeeming my family name and my legacy. I would be the one person capable of ensuring that the city was safe, and yet at the same time, I would have to mind instructions and work together with the other people in the Chantry with me.

The ceremony was not even complicated. The Grand Cleric, Hortensia, who was aging but retained the grace she had become famed for among the citizenry of Kirkwall, would officiate and give us each a small wooden box. I knew what the box meant – I had lived in the Gallows for years, after all, but even so it felt odd that the lyrium that would help me neutralize mages was the same substance that mages used to power up their spells and recover their mana.

As I stood in the line of three templars getting ordained, I wondered what it would be like. I wondered if, even for a moment, I would understand what it felt like to use magic, to feel power coming from inside me and not the muscles I worked to exhaustion on an everyday basis. Something inside me that would enable me to become the protector the city needed.

“Meredith Stannard, do you swear to uphold the tenets of the Chantry and the Templar Order?”

“I do,” I said, in the words traditionally reserved for a wedding ceremony. I was being wedded to my work. I knew, at that moment, that I would never wed, never become a mother. The Stannards would end with me, but hopefully I would at least be able to do something to ensure we wouldn’t be reviled.

“Take this blade as a symbol of the power you wield,” the Grand Cleric said, handing me the blade I had spent most of the previous night polishing so it would glisten with a sheen under the sunlight. I hadn’t expected the day would be cloudy. “And take this philter as a symbol of where your loyalties lie.” She held out the vial of blue liquid.

I reached out my hand and accepted the lyrium, wondering if something was going to happen the second I downed the liquid. Wondering if this ceremony was such a secret because it was supposed to be like the Harrowing, an initiation ritual easily used as an explanation if the person was never seen again.

But my mind returned to the first Harrowing I ever saw. That light in the mage’s eyes that faded away in a single instant in the moment before her power exploded, throwing us all against the wall. The way the Knight-Commander had yelled for me to stay back, because in his blood lay the resistance to magic and the ability to neutralize magic that I lacked because I was not yet an ordained templar. The blood dripping out of her smiling mouth as she died.

I raised the philter to my lips and reached out my tongue to taste the first dose. The taste was unusual but not bad per se, and with a deep breath and a gulp, I downed the vial. There was not even all that much in there compared to what I had seen other templars taking, but the second it poured down my throat I felt a buzz, a surge of energy that made me feel like I could run a hundred laps on the training field, save a hundred people.

I focused on the sensations in my own body as the Grand Cleric moved onto the next recruit. Inhaled and exhaled the power, the ease with which my body responded to my every command. The way even the small twitching movements I could get away with felt bigger, more powerful, like they could topple someone over.

“Congratulations, Ser Meredith,” I heard a voice in my ear after a roaring round of applause. So we were all templars, and that was my new name. I was a Ser now, responsible for so much more than I had ever thought of.

“Thanks,” I responded, remembering how I had come up to Thrask after his own ceremony and congratulated him and the way he gripped my hand showed me that the lyrium was giving him raw power. It had made me scared to fall behind my peers, but now… now, I could excel in the new way as well.

“How does it feel? Good?”

Good didn’t even begin to describe it, I wanted to say. I had found my place and was finally an official templar rather than a young blonde running around with a sword, the butt of every sexist joke in the Order, the one who people were always astonished to see succeeding. “It does,” I said, smiling. Even my steps felt larger as I walked out of the Chantry, noting a few raindrops falling from the sky. My senses felt keener, more alive.

“Yeah, I remember that,” he smiled. “You know, eighteen isn’t that old for knighting. I know you were hoping to be knighted when I was, but I am older than you.”

“Not that you look it,” I bit back, but I couldn’t even feel disappointed. I was a templar knight. I had started out behind once, and made it to the top of the recruits through a combination of effort and talent. I was not going to take things easy now that I was a templar, not in any way.


	9. The Holy Smiter

Along with my ordination came several new duties. Lyrium came every few days and I could feel my body responding in training; even when I was on patrol with other templars, my observing was keener and I was faster to race after anyone I had a suspicious feeling about. I did notice that the mages looked at me differently when I did door duty or anything else that brought me into their path, however. It was the look the hunted animal gives its hunter, a mixture of defiance and fear and acceptance of its own death.

I was now a threat.

In the beginning, I didn’t learn how to do the Holy Smite. I had to learn to manage my new strength. It felt like I was learning how to exist in my body for the first time, learning how strongly I could lash out with my sword, how quickly I could run, how much of a burden I could bear, how hard I could fall if I hit the ground. I wondered sometimes if mages felt this way when they first discovered their power, but all I could remember was the fear in my whole family and the long discussions about what to do. I couldn’t even remember what Amelia had thought or said or done, or even the first time she had used magic. All I could remember was her stringy hair falling into her eyes, darker than mine but equally as curly, equally as alive.

The day I did my first Holy Smite was the day a mage was getting punished. It was protocol to have the new templars test their strength against a mage who had committed some minor infraction to scare them straight, and since new templars were generally not able to perform powerful Holy Smites, it was safer for everyone involved.

My turn came on a rainy day and I was pulled into the Circle with wet armor and forced to look at a teenaged apprentice mage with holes in his robe trying to explain away some sort of incident in which he had ‘accidentally’ set a large and rather valuable tome on fire in addition to two other people. He stammered out an apology, but he didn’t meet me in the eye when I raised my hand.

Even he knew the fear as I brought my right hand down, summoning the power the lyrium had given me to produce a white flash. The image surprised and scared me – the ball of light in my hand, glowing with a fierce passion, resembled the magic my sister did, the magic the mages at the Circle did every day. And it looked like how they summoned it as well: slightly arched back, fingers in a very particular position, shaking with the effort. I could feel beads of sweat pooling on my forehead.

I knew not to look as my hand descended, as the Holy Smite hit the mage on the shoulder with a jolt causing him to fall backwards and let out a scream. By the time I opened my eyes, he had that look in his eyes, the one that all the mages got when the mages knew the true meaning of fear.

The thought occurred to me then, that if mages were as afraid of demons as they were of templars, they would have far fewer problems.

But then I remembered it. Amelia’s eyes, the day our parents told her about demons. Our parents, the solid middle-class merchant parents who generally just told us how to manage the shop stall and match fabrics, were telling her how a demon would tear her apart from the inside out, starting with her mind. And, in a way, our parents had done the same thing. They had started with her mind, her fragile mind, already plagued with the nervousness of being the older daughter and the role model… and something else.

Her worries had started long before she was a mage. But it was so much smaller, and the fears she had before never made her eyes look dead. Never made her look like she was already possessed by a spirit of fear, mutating until there was no way to distinguish the Amelia who was from the Amelia she became.

The boy didn’t get up from the ground. He took a few heaving breaths and vomited on the floor. Then he reached out his left arm and one of the enchanters pulled him up, ushered him away with his body between mine and the boy’s, whispering sweet words in his ear. I wondered what those words were, if they could help at all.

“That was a bit too strong, Stannard. You’ll need to work on applying the proper amount of force,” Aaron’s voice came in my ear after I had turned away from the boy and was ready to depart.

I wasn’t so sure that it was too strong. Maybe, if templars could be stronger, mages could be stronger as well…


	10. Templars Rise, Cities Fall

The years passed in a fashion I was accustomed to. My duties increased along with my responsibilities, and yet things seemed to become less important as I repeated them. Lyrium still made my blood alive, but with the carefully regulated doses, I began to understand why no one quit the Order. No one could live without lyrium once they had started taking it; even a few days without became tantamount to torture after I had been taking it for a month.

I saved my tenth life a year in, then my twentieth life, then my thirtieth. I was progressing through my list, and no matter how battered the parchment was getting from all the ink stains and even a few drops of blood when I rushed in from a mission before having time to clean up, it was getting stronger. Bolstered with the blood of those I had saved.

The Circle was bolstered as well, from the inside – a young mage named Orsino had become the youngest First Enchanter in the Circle’s history, bypassing several older and more qualified candidates for reasons I never quite figured out. Along with his new position came a new sense of superiority. He began to get a reputation for fighting for his mages, trying to bring his idea of justice to them. Allowing mages to roam free in the streets or go to places other than the Chantry was his goal, but he as well as many of the other templars knew it was impossible.

Just like it was becoming increasingly impossible to survive in Kirkwall. The Chantry’s generosity could only go so far, and when food was limited by what the viscount would allow into the city, the lyrium became our main means of nourishment. Daily I saw small protests and riots erupting in the city and the City Guard doing nothing, probably encouraging the protestors on the side.

The years passed as sparks did, quick and fleeting. But sparks, especially in a city with so many forces at play, always have the power to ignite, and when these finally did, no one in the city was safe.


	11. Too Much Kindness

Knight-Commander Guylian called me into his office on a grey morning with the shades drawn over the window facing the training yard. “Sit down, Stannard,” he said in a curt voice.

I instantly wondered what I had done wrong. “Knight-Commander?”

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” he responded to the tremor in my voice. He shuffled a few papers. “I need to speak to you about leadership.”

Leadership? I was just a regular templar knight, I was just one of many. Being female made me different, but not better, than any of my peers. I knew I would have to ask the one question that came to my mind immediately: why was the door closed and just the two of us inside? Where was Aaron and why was he not part of this discussion? “Should we wait for Knight-Captain Aaron?” I asked tentatively.

“He knows already. He is fine with what I have to say, but I would prefer if this knowledge would stay between us.”

“Then why am I in here… ser?” I added, trying to not be disrespectful.

He leaned in closer to me, close enough that I could see the wrinkles around his mouth move as he spoke. “Viscount Threnhold is taking too much power. We need to restore balance to this city, and we need to… You are needed, specifically. You are needed at a banquet that the viscount is holding next month.”

“What banquet?” I asked. Assuming it was a templar banquet, I was concerned that I hadn’t heard about it already.

“It’s for the upper echelon of leadership in Kirkwall – the nobles and important Chantry members. Ostensibly, it’s a charity ball to support the Grand Cleric – but truthfully, Threnhold is looking for a way to humiliate us in front of the nobles. There may be assassins there and we will need to be prepared.”

“I’m not in the upper echelon of leadership,” I said something I understood as fairly obvious, but Guylian didn’t seem to understand.

“But you will be,” he said with a small smile. “I have consulted Grand Cleric Elthina, and she told me the Divine has imposed no restrictions on the number of Knight-Captains allowed for one Knight-Commander.” I didn’t quite understand what was happening. “Consider this a promotion. You will be given the rank of Knight-Captain effective immediately, and while you remain behind Aaron in practical matters, you will hold the same rank.”

Instantly, I thought it must have been Elthina’s doing. She had a soft spot for me even when I was a child, and over the years, she was mastering the art of awing people in public and dealing honestly and sharply with the templars in private. She seemed to be the guiding force the templars would need with whispers in the town streets blaming Guylian for not taking enough action against the viscount. But why would Elthina choose me as an agent of change?

“Ser, I’m afraid I don’t… I’m not sure why I would be chosen for this honor. There are many other templars here who are stronger than me and larger than me and… more commanding,” I added, even though at that moment I was firmly convinced that I would never get to command anyone to do anything.

“Quite the contrary, Stannard,” Guylian said in a kind voice. “You are one of the most impressive members of the Order as it stands right now. You’re young, but you’ve got more passion than half the templars put together. And it doesn’t matter how big your muscles are if you spend your nights training and your days focused,” he added. “Yes, Aaron told me about your nighttime… excursions. I was surprised to hear it, considering how active you are during daily training. Sometimes even I don’t understand how you have that amount of energy,” he concluded.

“I’m trying to make up for… I have a list with seventy names on it. As a templar, I need… I believe I need to save one person for each person my sister killed.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Stannard,” he said gently, eyes roving over the list. “But if it’s what gets you to work, if that’s where your energy comes from, then use it as a focus. Just… whatever you’re doing, keep doing it. Your ordination will be next week at our Chantry morning meeting and the banquet is that evening.”

“I don’t have anything to wear,” I said, then internally chastised myself for sounding so stupid. I was not going to impress anyone in a flouncy Orlesian gown.

“Your armor will do. Let them see you strong – it took me a while to realize that you being a girl doesn’t mean you have to be girly. You’re not girly in the least, and putting you in a dress would undermine all the work you’ve done for the Order for so many years. Make sure to shine it before, though,” he commented, almost as an afterthought.

“Yes, ser,” I said, and when he stood up, I stood up as well.

He opened the door and loudly said in case anyone was eavesdropping, “Consult me again in the future if the mage does that again, Stannard.”

“Yes, Knight-Commander,” I saluted and walked away towards my closet.

Nighttime found me sitting outside atop the wall, watching the night guards go out to the Circle and the mages scurrying in their presence. My legs dangled over and I was thankful that it was too dark to see my reflection in the dark waters of the bay pooled beneath my feet. The still waters reminded me of everything I had heard that day – in addition to messing with maritime trade, the viscount was now interfering in templar affairs, forcing the Knight-Commander’s hand.

“Meredith?” I almost didn’t hear the voice behind me. Even though I couldn’t see his red hair or new beard, I knew who the voice belonged to.

“Thrask,” I said softly.

“What are you doing up there?”

“Thinking,” I said. In that moment I wished I wasn’t sworn to silence.

“You’ve got duty tonight?”

“No – do you need me to cover for you?”

“If you could. I’m not feeling too great.” I could hear that his throat sounded sore, but I didn’t think he was the kind of person to skip duty for such a simple illness.

“I can if that’s what you need,” I said, realizing that this was a sort of first act as Knight-Captain. I would be responsible from now on for helping people who shirked their duty for one reason or another.

“Thank the Maker,” he sid in far too relieved a voice. I wondered what he was hiding. “Aaron’s also on duty. He’s by the entrance to the Circle,” he said hurriedly and scampered away.

Shaking my head, I wandered over towards the Circle’s entrance. I could hear several people talking, but as I approached, I was faced with a scene the likes of which I hadn’t imagined. Two mages were standing against a wall, watching, their eyes opened wide with shock, as a templar and another mage were getting into a rather physical fight. Thinking of Thrask’s voice and realizing that he didn’t really sound all that hoarse after all.

I couldn’t see the face of either mage or templar, but I knew before I even got closer that the templar was Aaron. Whether he was driven by frustration at the viscount or fright for his position, I knew it was only a very specific kind of anger that would lead a man like Aaron to seek a fight with someone who could only fight back if they wanted to die right then and there.

At first, I wasn’t certain of what to do. Aaron was my superior and he would still be even with the new title, but without knowing what the mage had done to warrant the beating, I couldn’t be sure of his motives. I took a moment to center myself, taking a deep breath and walking forward quickly enough that the clanking of my armor would be audible.

All three mages turned around to face me when they heard my approach. Aaron looked up from the mage with a bloodied nose and bruises and turned to me, his gaze challenging me to act, to do something.

“Ser Aaron, what crime has this mage committed?” I asked. I would need to sound like I supported him unequivocally, especially without knowing what was happening.

“He didn’t even do anything, he was just walking back to the – ”

“Did Ser Stannard ask you to talk? Did she?” Aaron walked over to the mage who had spoken and who was now cowering against the wall. I hated the fear I could see in her eyes.

“What happened, Ser Aaron? What did the mage do?”

Finally, he turned to me. The female mage looked relieved to be avoiding Aaron’s anger as he walked away from her and started approaching me. I noticed his sword was missing and so were his gauntlets, both of which were imperative if he intended to actually arrest and punish a mage for something.

“It’s Knight-Captain Aaron. That’s my name, and that name means I have the right to do whatever I want if I believe a mage is going against the rules of the Circle!” He stammered a bit with another statement, but it got lost amidst his mumbling.  
“Go back inside,” I motioned towards the two mages. They exchanged a frightened glance and grabbed the third mage, the one who had taken the beating. I noticed he was an elf, but there wasn’t enough light to see his rank from the colors of his robes. I thought I heard a whispered word of thanks as they left, but I was busy paying attention to Aaron. Body-checking his way to get at the mages.  
He deflated as soon as the mages were gone. “Stannard,” he said in a frustrated voice. “Of course it would be you – but I thought Thrask was on duty tonight?”

“He felt ill,” I tried to explain. “He found me by the waterbank.”

“I don’t understand how you can even sit there. Watching the water there just reminds me of how much I’ve failed. Of how little power I have.”

“You said it before. You’re Knight-Captain. That means something,” I tried to console him. It seemed odd to me that he would need help from me, and then Guylian’s words rang in my head again. Was he testing me? Seeking for me to tell him what I knew about his position and how I would enforce it? Did he need to know I had his back no matter what he was doing?

“It doesn’t mean anything, Stannard. It really doesn’t. Just because I’ve got some fancy title doesn’t mean I can make change in Kirkwall. Remember that.”

He started to walk away, but I was not yet done conversing. “Then why? Why do you need me for this… banquet? What am I supposed to do?”

He held me in his sight and I was glad for the darkness, glad that I didn’t have to see the malice emanating from his gaze. “Guylian doesn’t just want you for that. He knows I’m weak. He needs you to be the next me. Sooner or later, he’s going to need a new me if he wants to do anything meaningful.” He paused. “But he doesn’t know that you’re weak too. All that extra training, all those nights you never slept – it was all for the ones you couldn’t save, wasn’t it?”

“How did you – ”

“People in power know things, Stannard. And it’s not too hard to trace your last name back. You can’t save those people and if you don’t wise up and figure out how to do things right with this viscount, you’ll be a bloodied corpse before long. Just like that abomination sister of yours.”

I turned my heel and walked away. My steps echoed on the stones and after one moment of hesitation, I could hear him following me. “Stannard… Meredith? Meredith, stop. I didn’t mean it…”

“Did you mean to hurt the mage like that, too?”

“That’s none of your business,” he said, still following, his longer legs meaning that he could go even faster than me. I started a light jog.

“And my sister is none of your business. But it is our responsibility to treat the mages well. The Circle isn’t a prison, Aaron.”

He tried to keep following me, but it didn’t take me long to get away. I doubled back and stood guard at the doors, something I always hated because it meant I had to stand still in one place without taking any action, but it felt right at that moment. Just doing one thing without hurting anyone.

When I stepped into the foyer of the tower for rounds, the female mage found me again. “I’m Enchanter Rina,” she said, bowing politely. “Thank you for helping my friend.” I could tell she had been in the Circle for a long time from the way she knew not to mention Aaron or how injured her friend was, or to offer her feelings or comments on the beating.

“How is he feeling?”

“He’s in the infirmary. He’s a good healer, but they think he might have bruised a rib.” Which meant several. Which meant that this beating didn’t just start when I got there. Which meant that Thrask had enough time to do something, but didn’t. I began to understand Guylian’s choice a bit more.

“Send him my good wishes to heal well,” I found myself saying, even though it was a crucial thing that templars and mages never spoke to each other like people.

“I’ll tell Orsino. He’ll appreciate it,” she said with a small smile before she scurried off. Orsino was a name I hadn’t heard before, and later a name I wished I had never heard at all.

I didn’t see Orsino until a few days later. His chest was wrapped under several layers of bandages, and the color of his robes showed that he was an enchanter, a Harrowed mage. Someone who had fought against demons and won by sheer strength of will.

He approached me, his voice raspy from the chest bindings, to thank me. “I appreciate your effort on my behalf” were his exact words. Even then, he spoke in such a fancy manner that I wondered, if he had not been a mage, whether he would have studied at university, even though he was an elf.

“It’s what templars are for,” I responded, and he smiled greatly.

“I’m glad to know someone understands,” he said with a smile. And then he was gone, off to learn with his instructors. I later heard that they were considering him for First Enchanter for years, since he had rebelled in his youth but learned to curb his temper and turn his fighting fists into words. Someone who could be beaten but not fight back was a clear leader in the Circle.


	12. Hallowed Deception

It was with apprehension that I went to the Chantry that week, walking down the streets of Kirkwall with the knights who joined at the same time as me. Even though my steps were even, I felt like my heart was pounding. It wasn’t even nerves for the ceremony – I had seen Aaron inducted, I knew what was going to happen. My name would be called and I would walk up towards the front of the room, I would kneel, the Grand Cleric would say a few words. I didn’t expect much since she had been so ill lately, and most of our time in the Chantry was spent praying for her to recover from the coughing sickness that had plagued her of late.

As I walked, I fell in step with Thrask, who asked me why I had a faraway look in my eyes. I kept my eyes fixed to the cobblestones after that, not halting until I felt a hand on my shoulder. “We’re going the side route,” Aaron was standing in front of me, gesturing.

I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t my place to challenge him.

He leaned in close to me, almost looking like he was moving in for a kiss. I carefully moved my face away and kept his lips closer to my ears than my face. “Listen, Stannard. I’m sorry about what happened the other night.”

“It’s not my place to challenge you, Knight-Captain,” I said in a hushed voice, scared that others would hear.

There was something unplaceable in his eyes. I could tell that addressing him so formally was putting cracks in the professional friendship we’d worked through over the years. “I understand,” he said softly, then walked ahead of me like nothing had happened.

We arrived to the Chantry and I caught his eye as he took a seat at one of the front pews. Guylian had told me, during the week, to make sure that I sat in one of the pews with my friends. It would seem more surprising, that way, when my name would be called and I would get up and leave them behind. It felt strange to watch them scoot over for me – the days of awkwardness between myself and my colleagues were long gone, but it still felt like they had to accommodate me. Like they were being chivalrous – but I would prove myself to be a better knight.

The service was starting late. That was the first thing I noticed. I looked at all the assembled people, heard their whispering and hushed doubts, wondering if the Grand Cleric would be able to even perform any services that day. And then Mother Elthina came to the front of the congregation, reaching out her arms in the benediction that made up the beginning of the service. No one challenged her, and as she started to chant, everyone followed along, but the titters among the crowd showed that something was most definitely out of place.

“I wish to offer a welcome to the Chantry’s protectors,” she gestured towards the templars as the Grand Cleric always did when she led services. “And to our honored viscount, who keeps our city safe.” She gestured toward a sallow-looking man sitting in the front row among a group of nobles in brightly colored velvet outfits.

I had never seen him before, but at that moment, I knew what was going to happen. Clearly, he knew what was about to happen, and clearly, he was about to put a stop to it. There was only so much Elthina would be able to do. So she was there as the Grand Cleric’s stand-in, I realized; she was responsible for making sure the viscount wouldn’t be able to challenge me or get in my way. She was putting her neck in the noose for me.

And then she shocked everyone. “I regret to inform you all that Her Grace, the Grand Cleric of Kirkwall, went to meet her Maker during the night.”

Voices erupted through the Chantry: “She’s dead?” “Bless her soul…” “But what about the – ”

“I wish to assure you,” Elthina continued in a strong voice, one I hadn’t heard from her before, “that Her Grace was able to pray before she died, and she died in grace. She is with the Maker.” Even all these years later, I couldn’t hear the phrase without a small physical reaction of disgust.

“She wished, in her final moments, for change to be effected in Kirkwall.” She looked at me for just a moment. I tried to find her gaze, but I froze. The viscount followed her eyes as well. When she lifted her hands again to offer her benediction again, I watched each movement carefully. “She nominated me as her successor, and in a ceremony this morning, I accepted my responsibility to the Maker.”

Everyone looked around, but there didn’t seem to be any other possible reaction besides “Maker bless you, Grand Cleric Elthina.” The words felt strange coming out of my mouth, but it turned out to not be half as strange as what happened next.

“As your new Grand Cleric, I believe that true change to Kirkwall can come from the Chantry. In accordance with Hortensia’s wishes,” she began the guilt-inducing statement that I would remember for the rest of my life, “I call Meredith Stannard to come to the front immediately.”

Thrask and the others couldn’t tear their eyes away from me. I saw a small smile on Guylian’s face and assumed it was because there were no protests. Everyone was calm and silent, watching Elthina, watching me, waiting to see what would happen next. I had been told to show up in armor that was less than shiny, with a blade covered in dull nicks. As I advanced through the rows of staring people, it occurred to me that I looked far too shabby to do whatever she was planning for me.

“Meredith Stannard swore a vow several years ago to become a templar. She swore to protect the people of Kirkwall and to avenge the deaths of those closest to her. And she has come from fighting – she is not here to be propped up as a figurehead of templar power, she is merely someone who comes to you as a supplicant and protector.” She smiled as she moved her hand down; I knelt at her feet.

A sister emerged from the back room and put the miter of authority on Elthina, confirming her new rank. And then she confirmed mine. “I have appealed to the Divine and received her permission – and her blessing – to nominate Meredith Stannard as Knight-Captain of the Templar Order.”

Whispers once again filled the crowd, but Elthina kept on with the ritual. She did everything, the laying on hands, the thumbprint of oil on my scalp, tapping my sword on my shoulders. She put her hand under my chin and lifted me up from the floor.

“I present to you, people of Kirkwall, Knight-Captain Meredith Stannard,” she said with a large smile. Aaron and Guylian were the first to show any sort of approval – and then the templar side of the room burst into a combination of applause and wondrous shouts doubting my authority and qualifications. But my eyes, unlike my ears, were not drawn to my fellow templars – they sought the viscount’s face, they found the crinkling of his nose and the way he whispered with the other nobles, wondering how to prevent me from doing what I was doing.

As soon as I had finished speaking the oath – and I was fairly sure no one could even hear the words I was saying over the din – I returned to a seat next to Aaron and kept my eyes fixed to my copy of the Chant for the remainder of the service. My own breathing drowned out the people poking me, asking if I’d known, what I was going to do, what was going to happen in this unprecedented circumstance.

Yet I wasn’t worried about their reactions. I was far more worried about what would happen when I stood up to leave the Chantry after Elthina’s final benediction – and walked straight into the viscount. With Guylian behind me, I was fairly confident he wouldn’t attack me, but I wasn’t sure what he had in mind or why he was grinning when he was so clearly displeased.

“Congratulations, Knight-Captain… Stannard, was it?” he started to say. I knew he knew my name.

“Yes,” I responded.

“I don’t think I’ve had the… pleasure of making your acquaintance before,” he said as he reached his hand out for me to shake. “You address me as ‘my lord,’ even with your new… title,” he said slowly. I was relieved when he turned his attention away from me, even as he shook my hand with his own clammy one. “Guylian. It’s a pleasure,” he said in a voice telling anyone around that it was most definitely not a pleasure.

“My lord,” was his only response, in an equally curt tone.

“You might have told me you were planning this stunt, Guylian. I would have set a place at the banquet for this lovely one,” he said.

“Oh, she’ll be there. I have a strong feeling you’ll be able to prepare, and if you can’t, she’ll take my seat,” Guylian retorted. “If you would excuse me, we have some training to do.”

The viscount stepped aside, although he looked at Guylian with some sort of meaning in his eyes that I didn’t understand. It looked like a mixture of hatred and planning. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again soon enough.”

“I’m sure you will,” Guylian said and grabbed me by the elbow, escorting me to the back of the Chantry, past the people trying to whisper to me and ask, once again, if I had known beforehand. It was clear the rumor mill wouldn’t stop anytime soon.

But there had been something there, a moment with the viscount, where he looked at me not as a young woman or as a templar under his heel but as someone who could threaten him. A threat, specifically. And then he had blinked and the glance went away, replaced with contempt. I turned around and watched him approach Elthina, give her the minimum bow appropriate for someone of her rank before starting to talk to her. I almost wished I could go back and help her in some way, but I knew she was on her own. As was I.


	13. Pretty Young Threat

The banquet was set for the end of the week, and true to his word, Guylian sent a note to the viscount the night before claiming that he was unable to attend because he had to solve a crisis with blood mages. To make his excuse more palatable, he told Aaron and I, he would in fact go into the sewers of Darktown and look for anyone who feared his presence and see if he could bring any apostates to justice. 

And, he had provided me with grander armor to wear. Thus far, I hadn’t worn or done anything different, I still lived in the supply closet and trained during the normal hours, but he provided me with a blade to wear with the newly polished armor with the Chantry sunburst emblazoned in the stomach area, which was made primarily of chainmail instead of plate metal. The chest piece was plate metal, and when I put it on, I could tell it was newly commissioned. How long had I been a part of this scheme, I wondered… how long was I a part of plans I didn’t even know about?

Guylian bade Aaron and I farewell as we left for the banquet. I hadn’t spoken to him since those few hushed words the morning of the ceremony, and he knew I didn’t want to make conversation as we walked towards the viscount’s keep. We arrived exactly on time, exactly when the City Guard was starting to take guests into the viscount’s main hall. The building was decorated ostentatiously, the stones filled with a variety of dangling objects that glittered in the burning torches. Each time a torch would get extinguished, a servant, usually elven, would run out and light it and scamper away before anyone could see their face.

“Welcome, honored members of the Templar Order,” he said in a booming voice before we could even get in through the door. He turned to some visiting dignitaries eating hors d’oeuvres. “This is Knight-Captain Aaron, and Knight-Captain Meredith Stannard. One must wonder why a Knight-Commander needs multiple subordinates – perhaps he is an ineffectual leader,” he speculated aloud even as the nobles shook our hands.

The comments kept coming. “I had hoped to dance with this pretty young thing, but it seems she’s not dressed appropriately for it. Shame she doesn’t know how to get dressed for a banquet.” Then when Aaron ate, “He’s Fereldan, I heard. Just piling food in. And that’s who’s in charge of our city?”

Guylian, Aaron, and I were kept at the high table, observing the dancing and the mummers and the performers. The viscount raised a challenging eyebrow when he called forth a group of mercenary soldiers and one began performing tricks with fire that he conjured from his hands. The viscount smirked at us, daring us to do something. The mage spun his fire to applause, and at the peak of the clapping, the viscount leaned over towards Guylian. I could hear him clearly, but none of the nobles cared to listen.

“If you dare to interfere in the way I run this city, I will not hesitate to take action against you.” And then he clapped his hands over and over, drowning out his words with the sound of his strong hands slapping against each other.

It would be several years before he would act on his final threat, before he would become so power-hungry and driven insane by the amount of people licking his boots that he would dare to take any action against the Knight-Commander and Knight-Captains. It took years, but when his vengeance came, it was swift and there was no room for error in retribution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that is Malcolm Hawke making an obligatory cameo :3


	14. Never a Stannard Again

The only reason I survived, I later found out, was that I was a woman. I was considered weak, I was considered the one weak link of the old templar administration that would founder until I would break under the pressure. I was intended to be the means by which the Templar Order would fall in Kirkwall, would give Perrin Threnhold enough time to solidify his hold over the city.

He was expecting me to look at the two bodies strung from the rafters and shrink back in horror. He thought I would see the tongues lolling out the sides of their mouths and take that as an order to run, hide, save myself. I saw the scene of myself as a child playing into my head, my small form hidden behind his shield, fire bursting through the air.

The clouds behind their heads looked like dreams wafting out of their hair. Moving up into the sky, into what was going to become their new home. I had thought they were invulnerable, even though templars died every day I could never see them dead. They were just too strong, too powerful. They never lost battles – but as I later learned, they were never given a chance to fight. They would never draw their swords against a ruling viscount, which was their downfall.

Guylian’s hair wove as it danced in the breeze, a whistle echoing from the wind sliding through his open fingers. It struck me then that I did not think I had never seen him without a sword. He looked oddly vulnerable as he swayed back and forth, armor clanking at too slow of a pace. Too slow for even walking.

Aaron swung beside him, his eyes veiled by a mist of seeing beyond. His gaze resembled a mage in the very moment of possession, that moment of loss of control and knowing that nothing could possibly bring them back to the life they had before. It was the look of death, the look of being alive in death.

I grasped my sword tighter. I was not too chivalrous.

I needed to muster an army. I needed to gather my forces, for there was no hope in attacking alone. Groups of templars wandered around the Gallows, looking for a leader. I was never expected to be a leader, never supposed to be. I was a mere figurehead, in place to intimidate the viscount. That was all Guylian could do. But I, the woman, the one who was never supposed to do anything, could do something. I could retake the city.

“Follow me,” I called, but only a few bodies advanced. Some looked at me, wondering what I was even trying to do.

“The Templars lost, Meredith. It’s hopeless,” Samson said. I advanced towards him and put my hand on his shoulder. I wondered, for a brief moment, why a coward like him still breathed. But that was not the time.

“I am Knight-Captain Meredith,” I said, my voice getting louder as I gained confidence. “That is my name. I might have been ordained as a last resort, but I was ordained. I was chosen to lead, and now that we’ve lost our commanders, it’s all we can do to get our city back.”

“Can we even do it?” said a voice in the crowd. The crowd – a larger number of templars was gathering around me. Listening to me, heeding my words. Looking at my armor and realizing there was a real Knight-Captain under there who was not going to abandon them without a fight.

“There’s more harm in not trying,” I responded, and pulled my sword out of its sheath. “This might not be Guylian’s blade, but I swear to you, if you follow my blade I will avenge the ones we lost.”

Already I could picture a burial for the two men, their bodies laid to rest behind the Templar barracks as was tradition for the strongest and purest Knight-Commanders. Their bodies would receive respect and honor, whether or not I was alive to do it.

“For Guylian and Aaron,” I said loudly as we took to the boats, manning the oars and sailing to the closest point for where we could reach the viscount’s keep. The citizens kept their doors shut as we marched through the city in perfect step, holding our hands on our scabbards, on the swords at our sides.

They were not prepared for us at the keep. They had only sent out a token resistance, enough for me to plow through easily. The viscount himself was waiting in the throne room, sitting atop his chair like he owned the world and not just the city. In his hands were the keys to unlocking the statues. He tossed them and laughed as he looked at who had come to interrupt his victory.

“Perrin Threnhold.” I would not dignify him with a title he did not deserve.

“Meredith Stannard – I am correct, yes, that you are the sister of the mage who slaughtered so many people? So many murders that were so easily preventable by the templars… and here you are. Seventeen years too late.”

My blood seethed. I understood my sister’s rage at that point, the rage of railing against the world where nothing came in the time or in the way it was supposed to. But no. This was what he was trying to do. He needed to catch me off my guard. He was scared. Scared of me.

“I am Knight-Captain Meredith… Stannard,” I said. There was no way to not have the story known now. I could feel the disapproval of some of the templars behind me that they hadn’t known my story. I could see Aaron’s face as he punched the mage with his big, strong templar hands. Those hands would be around the viscount’s throat already, I knew. But I had to wait for the right moment to strike.

“You’re standing there – and for what? To tell me your name? I know who you are – I know what you are,” he sneered. “That weakling Guylian planted you. He knew I had a plan, he knew he would die and what did he do for the templars? Nothing. He didn’t even try to do anything. Didn’t put a hand on me as I arrested him. Me!” He let out a barking laugh. “The viscount he had seen to the throne! I knew he would be like that even though he’d seen me as just a child. He knew when it is proper to obey his betters.”

I stayed silent. I did not know what he sought, nor why he was goading me. Perhaps he was trying to get rid of my supporting templars so he could hang me as well? I could hear some shuffling movements behind me, but didn’t turn my head. It wasn’t worth it. If I was going to die, I wouldn’t die as a coward. I would die doing what was right – like Guylian had done. Like Aaron had done. Sweet, guilt-ridden Aaron, his hands wrapped around the mage’s throat. Vicious Aaron who sought to have me bribed with a title.

“What are you even here for? You have no hope of defeating me. Now that you’ve killed two nobles in the entryway, I can have you framed for murder. You’ll soon join Guylian and, what was his name… The other one. The unimportant one.” He crossed one leg over the other. “You know, when I met you that night at the farce of a ceremony calling you a Knight-Captain, I never thought you’d even have the guts to look at me again. You should know to look down when I speak to you. I am your ruler.”

Calm, steady voice. There was no reasoning with him. His men were so dispensable to him that he had placed them there as bait for me to kill. It said volumes about him – but it also told me that he feared me. I approached him, drawing my sword in one smooth movement. “Perrin Threnhold, you are no longer suitable for the office of viscount of the city of Kirkwall. Yield to me or face the consequences.”

He stared at me for a long moment and then laughed. “Consequences? What could a pretty little thing like you even do to someone like me?”

I was not pretty. I was fierce. I charged forward – alone – and as he drew his sword and descended the steps near the throne I could hear dozens of swords being drawn as every templar in the room, to a man, drew his sword.

The fight did not even last long. His words were his main weapon and without his power to speak, he was nothing. We fought for what felt like forever. I didn’t know the tricks of a warrior, being too accustomed to fighting against mages. I resolved to add more training to my templars’ regimen in the mornings. Fighting against fighters. We danced back and forth, stepping forward and backward. I could feel the movement of the two hanging bodies propelling me forward, daring me to do moves I had only ever tried on the tiltyard. I could feel the blade responding to me, darting forward to graze some hair off of Threnhold’s short beard.

“You fight well for a woman,” he grunted. He swung his sword haphazardly, and I had to duck to avoid a blade to the face. I wondered whether he was even in his right mind, whether even the power-hungry man I had met years before was willing to murder to keep his name alive.

“And you fight well for a savage,” I responded. I caught his hair in my hands and forced him to his knees. I held my blade at his neck. “Surrender,” I breathed softly, like a lover’s whispered word.

“Never,” he hissed. He sent out his fist and punched me in the throat, probably forgetting for the moment that I was a woman and there was no Adam’s apple to punch. He smirked. It was as though he was remembering all over that I was a woman, that he was far too prideful to lose to a woman. But I stood my ground.

I pressed the blade into his neck. I could see a few drops of blood dotting the surface. At that moment, everything else in the room stopped. It was just me and him. “Surrender.”

I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he gulped. His eyes darted all around, and for the first time I looked at the scene of the battle. Mercenaries’ bodies littered the floor, my templars standing above them. Thrask nodded to me as Perrin Threnhold uttered the last words I heard him speak: “I surrender.”

He would be in chains before the day was out. Taken to prison – death would be too easy for him. The remaining nobles fled or watched the templars carefully for any sort of reaction. What happened in the next moment would determine the fate of the city, and everyone knew it.

Surprisingly, Otto Alrik was the first to bow. Hand to chest, knee to ground. Then Thrask – Emeric – and waves of templars started bowing, offering a respectful salute. I clutched the fistful of Threnhold’s hair and watched the templars bow to me, acknowledge me for the position I had been preparing for yet never expected to have. I felt a wave of energy surge up and lifted my sword. I lifted it tall and proud for the two people who couldn’t be there with me, who should have.

“Take care of their bodies,” I said, and no one needed to ask for clarification. And no one needed to ask why they were following me to the Chantry, to the funeral service that would have made both of them weep even as I kept my eyes calm and steely, even as I prepared for what I knew would be my new identity for the rest of my life.

I spent the night in the Chantry, meditating, sleeping at the feet of the great statue of Andraste. My body curled into a small shape, receiving what comfort I could take from the cold floor. Thinking about everything I was not supposed to – the wounds Thrask had received hours after the viscount was captured and the way he limped back to the Gallows, the look on Alrik’s face as he bowed his head and body to me. The whispered words of the orphans that I could hear from the side rooms, the shushing the sisters gave them as they settled down to sleep.

And, in the morning, lit by the sunrise, the look of the people as I walked into the main room of the Chantry, unaccompanied, past the pews filled with templars and townspeople and everyone who had a stake in Kirkwall’s future. Grand Cleric Elthina stood at the front, an enigmatic smile on her face. She had held her position for several years now, but never before had she looked so regal. Nor had I – my armor was polished to a sheen the likes of which it had never seen before, my sashes tied tightly, my hands in new gauntlets. I could have stared around at the spectacle, but what I cared about most was Elthina. Her approval. I focused on her, my steps slow and measured, my head high.

I knew my head would never bow again.

Elthina handed me a sword. I recognized it instantly – Guylian’s blade, rescued from the site of the attack. I thought back to the wounds I had seen Thrask nursing. He had brought me the blade that was to be mine, a blade that symbolized everything I was to be working for – and the end I must try to avoid, for the sake of Kirkwall. As I knelt, I wondered where he was in the crowd, and whose face among the dozens of templars and citizens was looking at me with a smile.

I felt the oil poured on my head and run down into my eyes. I saw gold, the whole world tinted in gold. I blinked, and it disappeared. Something rested atop my head. The crown. Guylian’s crown, yet it didn’t feel manly or tough or hard to lift anymore. It felt right. I could feel the base of it leaning against my eyebrows and tucking behind my ears. The gold of my hair, the gold of the crown, blended into one. I was always meant to be there.

I could hear the prayers and blessings as if they were coming from another world. No noise entered my ears save for Elthina’s calm words, her benediction, how she brought the people together for this great cause of ushering Kirkwall into a new era, something like the Dragon Age had never seen before.

Grand Cleric Elthina chose a verse from the Chant to be my own goal, to help me strive for something in my command. Blessed are they who stand before / The corrupt and the wicked and do not falter. / Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just. The templars recited it in a chorus after her.

She had blessed me. I was the one who stood between the corrupt, wicked viscount who hanged my mentors and the city filled with innocent people who needed protection. I would not – no, I simply could not falter. I was where I was meant to be, at last.

“Knight-Commander Meredith.” The name sounded so strange, yet so right. I inwardly cringed, waiting for her to say the next part, the last name that would tie me to my murderess sister once and for all. But then she tapped my shoulder, urging me to stand up. To turn around, and face the city full of people crowding into the cathedral and shouting my name, affirming my authority over them.

“No last name?” I whispered to Elthina.

“No last name,” she whispered back, affirming my dearest hope. I had put the Stannards behind. I was going to succeed on my own name, and no one was ever going to compare me to my failed sister or my coward parents ever again. I would just be Meredith, and my lack of last name would be my own choice. My own destiny. And at that moment, I knew I could not fail.

I hoisted Guylian’s sword out of its scabbard. The clear blade shone in the light streaming in from the windows on the sides of the great room. “For Kirkwall,” I said proudly, and the city – my city now – affirmed it.

The viscount was imprisoned. He died two years later, imprisoned, forgotten by everyone including the sycophants who used to work for him. A week after my coronation, I appointed Marlowe Dumar as the new viscount of Kirkwall. I knew he would work with me, wouldn’t let the city go to the Void again because he was too afraid of the templars. The balance would be restored along with the partnership between the government, the Chantry, and the Templar Order under my helm.

I believed things had settled down, that things were finally going to go back to normal and the city would be stable. And for many years, I was right.

But then the Hawkes arrived.


	15. Part II / The Wheel of Fortune Rises and Falls

**PART II**

_"...or live long enough to see yourself become the villain"_

I encountered the brother first. Carver Hawke, the angry young man who showed up at the Gallows after a yearlong period of restricted entry to Kirkwall because of the Blight in Ferelden. Refugees flooded the city gates, and no matter how many people begged to be let in, I knew that the Circle in Kinloch Hold had been dissolved and there were most definitely mages on the run. It was worth it, I knew, to keep civilians out until I could make sure there was no influx of apostates into my city. However, this led to an increase in mercenary activity, which enabled many Fereldans to sneak their way in by ingratiating themselves as indentured servants to the lowlifes of Kirkwall. And this was the way in which the Hawke family entered my city.  
  
I did not know any of them their first year; my time was full of managing the underground and training my men to pick apostates out of a crowd. Those who hid or shied away from templars were our prime suspects, or those who always looked like they had somewhere to go and never walked, only ran. I took in the Fereldan recruits to the Order who hadn’t completed their education or training, and opened the ranks of the templars to those who could hold a sword and needed somewhere to be.  
  
It was a cloudy day when Carver Hawke appeared in the Gallows to register. I was overseeing a training exercise and lamenting how few of the men could actually fight their way through an incendiary situation when a new mage apprentice supervised by a senior enchanter loosed a fireball into the crowd. The boy burst into hysterics as the fireball soared and men dodged away from it, and suddenly a templar I didn’t know instantly reacted, held his shield with a downward angle and drove the fireball into the ground.  
  
A hush fell over the Gallows as I walked over towards the templar, who scratched at his short black hair with a broad hand. “Templar,” I addressed him, and he did not look up. “What is your name?”  
  
“Erm… Carver Hawke,” he said. He sounded far more nervous talking to me than he did getting rid of the fireball.  
  
“Ser Carver Hawke?” I asked, probing to see if he was really a templar.  
  
“Actually, I’m not a templar. I was coming by to see if I could… if I could join the Order,” he mumbled.  
  
“Not a templar?” I asked, and he had the dignity to look ashamed. “But how did you know – angling a shield like that is a templar technique. Templars are recognizable by how they handle a shield anywhere, and you are using your shield like a templar.” I tried to place his accent. Was he a Fereldan refugee? He most certainly wasn’t from Kirkwall or any other city in the Free Marches. “It is all right if you come from Ferelden. Their training is not exactly the same, but I can work with that.”  
  
“I’ve never trained to be a templar… at least not formally.” He blushed, which was definitely odd for a recruit. “My father’s best friend was a templar. He gave my father this shield and sword before he died and told him to train his son to fight. I’m just used to fighting against mages, that’s all.”  
  
The boy’s story intrigued me – not that I was trusting him completely, but the fact that he was holding himself well in armor and not falling over and the fact that he was comfortable with a templar sword and shield meant something in these days filled with desperate recruits looking for food who couldn’t figure out the business end of a sword. “Come join me in my office,” I said and started walking towards the building. He followed half a step behind me at all times, his eyes darting around to watch his back. “Afraid of being attacked? The Gallows is a safe place for a templar,” I said as I opened the front door.  
  
Carver Hawke didn’t answer. He followed me silently to the two doors near the entrance, one on the left and one on the right. I opened the door on the right and walked into my office, pointing at the chair opposite my desk. He sat, and I chose to stand as I asked him more questions. I started with a simple one: “How did you train?”  
  
“With my father,” he started, and then mumbled “and some mages” under his breath.  
  
“So you trained at a Circle?” I asked. I had never heard about a program like this in Ferelden, no matter how odd their training was.  
  
“Of sorts,” he said, then he picked his head up and clarified quite quickly. “My father trained me to fight against mages. When I was younger, he used to play a game with me – he would find a mage who would attack me and then another one who would heal us if either of us got hurt. We would stand at opposite ends of a field and try to reach each other. If I could touch her, I would win. And I hated losing.”  
  
It was an odd system, although I did see the merits to it. With the training against a real mage, a templar could gain a proper fear of magic, and learn proper techniques for fighting against mages. “How did your father find these mages?” I asked. I wondered if the training was more for his son or more for the mages, trying to help them escape templars. It could have gone either way, and although I didn’t know exactly what the mages were trained in the Gallows, I knew that many of them shared techniques of how to fight against their protectors, as if they had any right to do so.  
  
“These were mages who did work on the side at the bann’s estate – I’m from Ferelden,” he clarified. “The banns would hire mages as healers or mercenaries and my father was well connected, he knew where the mages were and he said he wanted me to be able to become a templar. He died three years ago, so I’m a bit out of practice, but I’ve been… practicing lately.”  
  
A way to say that he had been involved with the mercenary groups or had been smuggled into the city somehow. I was beginning to recognize the code words used by the refugees, but this soldier seemed well-trained enough that I would want him regardless of his dubious origins or strange political connections. “You may join,” I added almost as an afterthought, when I was done thinking through the options. I needed useful fighters, and anyone who could fight against a mage was useful to me.  
  
“Thank you,” he said, almost as if he was expecting me to throw him out on his backside. “I have a shield, and a sword, but I don’t have templar armor. I last served with the king’s army at Ostagar.”  
  
This made me want him even more. He had escaped from the battle that the king of Ferelden had lost his life in, and this young man had gotten out and figured out a way to Kirkwall. He was level-headed… or a deserter. “Very well, the armory is down the hallway.” I opened my door and pointed him in the right direction. “One final thing – we do not tolerate deserters here.”  
  
“I understand,” he said in a steady voice. I had the proof I needed.  
  
And I was proven right. Carver Hawke was indeed a valuable recruit, leading the other recruits almost as soon as he began his training. He spoke very little about his origins or his family, but proved through his skills every day that he fought against worthy opponents back in Ferelden. His father had trained him well, and yet he barely, if ever, mentioned any other members of his family. He told me of a mother living in Lowtown, and the day he moved into the barracks, he mentioned that his sister was angry at him for becoming a templar. It was the first I heard of Marian Hawke – and I, lulled into complacency by the skill of her brother, believed her to be no threat.  
  
She returned to the city the day after her brother joined the Order, and we did not cross paths for years. She was busy appealing to the viscount for her family’s old estate and using money from the foolish Deep Roads expedition she had undertaken to reclaim the old Amell legacy. Even with this, she was essentially still a nobody, and with all the repairs to the city and the things that needed to be done, no one cared to look at her.  
  
The only way in which I ever crossed paths with Marian Hawke in the next three years was when I encountered a surly dwarf named Bartrand who was selling his treasures from the Deep Roads. He came to the Gallows and requested a private meeting with me. He offered me a way to protect my city further by tapping into ancient dwarven lyrium with powerful effects. He offered me a price. I sold an old piece of jewelry to buy the little lyrium idol that instead of shining blue like the potion I took more frequently and in greater quantity over the years, it shone with a brilliant shade of red.

 


	16. The Horned Ones Were Not My Worst Enemy

The day I first met Marian Hawke, who was generally known by her surname only, I was alarmed to the day’s unusual qualities when a templar came bursting into my office, not bothering to knock or bow or anything. “The Qunari – they’re attacking the city – we need backup,” he wheezed.

“They’re what?” I had never trusted the Qunari, a race of giants with their own heretical religion who had been squatting in Kirkwall for three years, shipwrecked shortly after Hawke’s expedition that won her a place among the gentry of Kirkwall. The conflict between the Chantry and the Qunari had escalated over the years, finally ending with the vicious murder of the viscount’s only son, Saemus, in the heart of the Chantry itself. The people lived on the edge of a knife, no one was truly safe, and now the knife was about to split them in half.

“Attacking, ser. They’ve got the viscount and several other nobles prisoner and they’re killing as they go – ”

“Prepare a regiment to go immediately. I will lead them. The rest of you, stay here and make sure no mages leave the Tower unless I call for them to back me up.”

“Backup from mages?” He sounded unsure. Truth be told, I was as well. If the situation was dire enough to require help from mages, the city was surely doomed.

“If the Qunari are trying to take over the city, we may need them. Rest assured I would not make that decision lightly,” I said, picking up my sword from the ground and strapping it on my back. For a moment, I wished I could take the little idol with me, for courage if nothing else. But no. I had enough courage. I could protect my city on my own. I closed the door, careful to not let the other templar see what I was keeping secret from the others. The burden I had to bear to be the one who could save the city all by myself.

I fought through the city streets with a dozen of my finest men. Thrask, Emeric, even Otto Alrik joined me, for he was useful even though the complaints against him had only increased over the years. We fought through the ox-men, finding that they had even unshackled their mages long enough to let them wreak havoc on the city. Without a forceful armed resistance, we would clearly lose all control.

We fought towards Hightown, towards the viscount’s keep where Dumar and the other nobles were being held against their will. He needed me, and the idea did cross my mind that a viscount in my debt would be a useful political ally. I advanced towards the locked doors, finding a small company of adventurers fighting in front of the doors. Three looked relatively normal, but the fourth was in Circle robes, male Circle robes. Orsino. Could I trust no one? I kept a close eye on him as I advanced towards the group, wondering if these were the people who had helped him escape.

I watched the person’s two hands go up and fire began raining down on the heads of the nearby Qunari, the warriors falling down as their bodies burned alive. As I got closer, though, I began to doubt the mage’s identity. The robes were not those of a First Enchanter but of a regular male mage, Kirkwall standard issue, from about thirty years ago. The mage’s movements were nimble as the two feet danced and the two hands wove spells through the air, rending the sky with elemental forces. The mage had the power of Orsino, but when I got close enough to see them, I realized the hair was different. It was not Orsino.

I was about to intercept the mage when a Qunari mage exploded his power, sending all four adventurers plummeting to the ground. I knew what I had to do before I did it, and I rushed in to attack the Qunari mage. I would need to get the other mage on my side. In an invasion, especially by Qunari, there was a need to join forces with everyone on your side. For the moment, this mage was on my side – and he? she? was about to be slaughtered.

My blade found a slick entrance between the Qunari’s ribs, halting the movement of his hands and the white spell he was summoning. He fell to the ground and I beheaded him for good measure; the head quickly rolled behind a tree. The mage on the ground rolled over and started to try to sit up; I reached down my hand without even thinking and pulled the mage up.

“I am Knight-Commander Meredith,” I said, looking into the mage’s face for any signs of recognition. It struck me that the mage was female, and she looked quite familiar. Her hair was dark and short, and she had the same stormy blue eyes as – “Ser Carver. You are related to him, yes?”

“I like to pretend I’m not,” she said in a joking manner, brushing the dirt from the cobblestones off of her robes. She made no move to conceal the staff she wielded or the lyrium potion she withdrew from her pocket and downed in one smooth gulp. “But, unfortunately for both of us, I am. Marian Hawke. I’m his sister.”

His sister. So Carver, like me, was hiding a mage sister. He, like me, grew up under the shadow of a sibling who could do things he could only imagine, things that probably gave her the confidence she needed to stand in front of me and not bow, not try to apologize for anything. No, she stood in front of me strong and confident, and walked with me as I took a few steps away.

“You are an apostate.”

“Guilty as charged,” she said, with a smile. A smile! An apostate caught by the Knight-Commander and she had the nerve to smile! “Where is my brother? Is he hurt?” she added.

I tried to remember where I had left Carver – door duty, most likely. “He is guarding the Circle, making sure no one tries to escape during my absence.”

She got a determined look on her face. “Anything happens to him, and I won’t hesitate to do to you what I did to that Qunari over there.” She pointed at a smoldering corpse still letting out small sparks of what could have been either fire or electricity. “Behind you!” she shouted and withdrew her staff, conjuring an icy blast that she shot – I was caught between her and the Qunari – 

And the blast of ice shot past me, just in time for me to stop my sword’s swing before it could chop off her neck. She took in a deep breath, smiled again, and started to slam her staff on the ground and whirl it around, sending blasts of magic at the attackers. “We’re on the same side, Knight-Commander. We both need to get rid of these Qunari.”

“For now,” I said softly, but did not argue. If I had argued, if I had taken Marian Hawke out as an enemy and fought through her friends to get to the Keep myself, perhaps I would have been able to prevent what happened next. But I had no way to know – not even the most impressive mage could see the future, and I was far from a mage. I, at least, had a sense of honor and dignity. I wouldn’t laugh in the face of someone who could kill me as easily as breathe.

When we dispatched that wave, Marian Hawke and I advanced together towards the keep. She spoke as she advanced, ordering the three people traveling with her what to do. They followed the orders. “Are you their leader?” I asked.

“Of sorts,” she said as she shot a lightning bolt at an advancing Qunari. “We travel together.” She offered no more explanation than that, although her companions’ strange appearances certainly seemed like there was more of a story to be told.

“And you have been in the city as long as your brother?”

“Four years. You’ve got a bit of a security problem,” she joked. I failed to find her rebellion funny.

We fought side-by-side, and the longer I watched her, the more I realized she was quite the gifted mage. She was not only a good mage, she was incredible. She could call the power of the Fade to her as easily as take a breath, and yet the way she fought… she fought as if she was fighting against templars. As if she had fought against us her entire life not only by existing outside of the Circle but by actual force.

“Get reinforcements,” I growled to the nearest templar I saw. We conquered back our land, a foot at a time, until another legion of templars finally arrived. We fought until our swords were bloody and I leaned against the doors, throwing them open with all my weight. Half a dozen Qunari pounced as soon as we got in the door, and we made our way into the great hall only to see the Arishok, the Qunari’s giant leader who made even me look small, whose arm muscles were the size of human legs, dropping the severed head of Viscount Dumar at his feet.

We were too late. That was my first thought. And the second was, why was Marian Hawke walking closer to him? How did he know how to address Hawke? And why, why, was Hawke, a mage built like a twig, challenging the Arishok to single combat?

It occurred to me that this would be a quite easy way to get rid of the apostate. Even a mage as strong as her could not possibly hope to overcome the Arishok in combat… several of her friends tried to convince her otherwise, but she simply dragged her thumb across her nose, leaving a bloody smear on her face. She looked up into the Arishok’s eyes as he stood over a foot taller than her – and she fought.

I had never seen a mage fight like that before. She ducked around corners and behind pillars, weaving dexterously around the brutish strength of the Arishok, Duck, fireball, shoot, she rolled along the ground and jumped over his blade and finally, when the two of them were soaked in sweat and she had chugged every potion on her belt, he pinned her to a pillar, skewering her through the shoulder with his large halberd.

She breathed in and out slowly. It seemed like the whole city was moving slower, like time was just stopping and she was just hovering in a world all her own. I saw the look of pain wash over her face, contorting and grimacing as the Arishok charged forward. I could see the battle strategy as if it was something I was planning on a map. She had one opportunity to do anything, but if she couldn’t move…

She tried to summon fire with her left hand, finding that the blood vessels were too constricted. It resembled how the Holy Smite worked – it was a way to shut down the mage’s system to call forth magic. There was only one way for her to summon her magic – and it wouldn’t be easy, not without demonic involvement. I clutched my sword, ready to chop off her head the moment she summoned the demon.

One breath, two, and then she yanked the halberd out of her arm and in the moment before the blood started to spurt like a fountain, in the moment before any magic would have become blood magic by default, she charged at the Arishok, screaming, throwing a fireball directly into his face. He screamed and toppled over, dead before he hit the floor.

Marian Hawke wobbled as she stood. She held her right hand over the gaping wound in her shoulder, pouring blood all over her ripped robes. She swayed alarmingly on her feet, looking around for an ally, looking to me, to the nobles, to anybody.

And the room burst into applause. Cheering, clapping, rushing forward to support her. In a moment of silence it was up to me to declare what the nobles knew they would affirm the next time they met: “Marian Hawke, I declare you the Champion of Kirkwall.” There was no way out of this situation anymore. In the duel between myself and this mage, she had won – and yet, I was still alive.

A large smile. And then she wobbled and fell forward, caught by a man I didn’t even see coming, wearing a ludicrous feathered coat and shooting a wave of healing magic to stanch the flow of blood. He picked her up and ran, out the door and between the nobles, all the way to where the nobles told me she was living: the old Amell estate. All that remained to be seen was whether she would survive – and what would happen to her lying brother.


	17. He Lies Like Me

I marched into the Gallows as soon as I had figured out where Marian Hawke was going. As soon as I had watched the small procession of people following her to her home turning into a vigil watching and waiting for her to recover. I couldn’t stand it for more than a few moments. “Carver Hawke. My office. Now.” I growled at the templar manning the gate to the Gallows as soon as I arrived. He ushered me in as quickly as possible and started running towards the barracks. I strode towards my office, finding Orsino in the hallways waiting for me.

His tone was a mixture of concern and relief. “I heard there was action in the city. What happened?” he said, as if he hadn’t heard the rumors already flying around Kirkwall. That an apostate mage, supported by Knight-Commander Meredith, had vanquished the Qunari single-handedly.

“Kirkwall has a new Champion,” I spat. I had just begun thinking of the consequences of Hawke, a mage, being allowed to not only roam free but have power.

“And that’s a bad thing?” he asked in an ingratiating way. Was he capable of speaking without somehow irritating me?

“I thought she was you.”

“So she’s very attractive,” he joked before remembering I still had my sword in my hands and it was still covered in blood of the Qunari I had slain. He wasn’t so brave when he was reminded of how lethal I was.

“She’s a mage, idiot,” I snapped. “When Carver Hawke gets here, get him to come inside.”

Orsino looked confused, but he bit back any rebellious statements as I shut the door. Taking several deep breaths, I tried to center myself before Carver entered. Even though this wasn’t a formal criminal investigation, he had lied to the Templar Order, and I would need to cultivate a sense of calmness and security. I was still secure in my position. I opened the drawer and looked at the little red sculpture humming in my desk. I touched it and felt instantly rejuvenated, power flowing through my hand. When I heard footsteps outside the room, I shut the drawer, but I could still feel the buzz of the substance that was worming its way under my skin where I had touched it.

“Come inside. Sit,” I motioned towards the chair across from me when the door opened. Carver Hawke looked tentative, troubled, but he knew better than to disobey a direct order. He sank into the chair apprehensively, and I let him sit in silence while I got up, closed the door, and then returned to my seat, folding my hands atop the desk.

“Something rather curious happened today, and I was hoping you would be able to give me some insight into it.” I started light. It was always the best way – get them talking, lead them into a place they couldn’t escape by making them admit things they had known all along. And there was no way Carver Hawke was getting out of this one.

“Ser?”

“As you know, the Qunari launched an assault on the city. They entered from Lowtown and marched into the center of the city, attacking and murdering everyone they saw on sight. I was fighting my way through the crowds when, to my surprise, I encountered a mage in Circle robes attacking the Qunari from the front steps of the Viscount’s keep.”

“I kept them in the Circle. No one got out under my watch,” Carver said immediately. “The doors were shut the entire time. If someone escaped, they must have done it before my duty began.”

“I originally thought it was Orsino,” I continued.

“I can personally vouch for the fact that the First Enchanter was safely in the Gallows – ” he interjected as I spoke.

“I am talking,” I said. Carver obediently shut his mouth. “I approached the mage, who had a remarkable control of fire magic, and who was picking Qunari off like flies. It took me a moment to notice that the Circle robes were the male robes from about thirty years ago – and they were meant for a male, yet the person in the robes was most definitely female.”

Carver gulped. Clearly, he knew where I was going. “Imagine my surprise when I approached this mage and discovered that not only was she not Orsino, but she was named Marian Hawke, and cited you as her younger brother.”

Carver didn’t say anything. He started staring at his lap. After waiting a few uncomfortable moments for him to speak, I continued. “She acknowledged her relation to you when I asked, and then told me that she would easily turn her magic against me if I let any harm come to you.”

“So she died,” Carver said, eyes fixed on his lap. It looked like he didn’t know what emotion to display first.

“Not yet,” I said, “But it may not take long. She and I struck a bargain because I needed any allies I could get. It turned out that this foolish mage had a friend who had stolen something important from the Qunari, and after the Arishok declared war, this Marian challenged him to a duel. One on one.”

“The Arishok? The… the huge Qunari war-leader five times her size?” Even Carver looked impressed.

“Indeed, and I must say, it was quite the fight to watch.” I recalled vividly how Marian Hawke had fled behind pillars and dodged the strong blows until they were both straining with sweat, until his blade had finally caught her in her shoulder and pinned her to the farthest pillar. I recalled the grimacing grin on her face as she had yanked it out of her shoulder, rushing forward with a giant fire in her hands until the brute fell down dead.

“She fought him in front of all the remaining nobles. The viscount’s head rolled on the floor. The people looked to her for help and when she vanquished her foe I had no choice but to declare her the Champion of Kirkwall.” I could see Marian almost as if she stood in front of me, holding her left shoulder with her right hand, grimacing as the blood welled up between her fingers and began to splatter on the ground. Swaying and falling into the arms of a mage who was healing her in front of me before I could even react.

Carver and I sat in silence for several moments. I was determined to not speak again until he came up with some sort of explanation for why his sister was blatantly doing magic in the city streets, but when he spoke, it was not an explanation at all. “She always knew how to show off.”

“Pardon me?”

“She always knew that she was good. Better than my sister, probably better even than our father. I have no doubt she did that.”

“So your sister… sisters?... they’re apostates?”

“My twin sister died. Not from blood magic, a non-magical death that could have happened to anyone,” he was quick to explain. “Marian and Bethany grew up outside of the Circle. Father was an Enchanter in a Circle once and he taught them how to be responsible mages.”

Responsible mages… an oxymoron if I ever heard one. No matter how much training a mage received, no matter how much they tried to be upstanding, the devils in their hearts would win out eventually. “How was a mage able to reunite with his own children?”

“They were never separated. He left the Circle when Mother was pregnant. A templar helped him. Marian was always close to Father,” he said with a bitter tone. “She was always his favorite. His little mage, the one he could teach to do all of his fancy tricks. Sure, he liked watching me do my swordplay, but he had to keep his daughters safe.”

It was, in some way, a mirror of my own situation. A father and mother keeping their beloved daughter against the protest of their non-magical child who could see through the lie of keeping the family together and realized that the family would go through nothing but trouble if they kept her. “I assume the robes are his?”

“They were, yes. He died three years before we fled from Ferelden. She wears the robes when she’s nervous,” he added. Finally, a useful fact, a potential weakness. A nervous mage was an even more dangerous mage than usual. I had learned that fact the hard way.

“Do you have any idea how bad it is that you lied to the Order – to my face, in fact – about harboring an apostate?”

“I understand, but I’m sure I’m not the only templar who’s done it.”

His words struck home. “Are we talking about other templars right now, or are we talking about you? You just took your vows less than a year ago, if I recall correctly, and you swore to protect Kirkwall while knowingly unleashing a powerful mage on innocent townspeople!”

“Did she kill anyone? Aside from the Arishok?” he challenged me.

“None of our citizens died to her magic today, but do you not realize how easy it is for people to die by a powerful mage’s hands? How easy it would be for your sister to become a murderer?”

“I recognize it,” he grumbled. He took a moment to collect his thoughts and I was surprised by where he went next. “Can… can you tell me if she’s hurt?”

“The Arishok speared her through her shoulder with his broadsword. To her credit, she did no magic while she was bleeding, but she collapsed almost immediately after. An apostate took her to the Amell residence for healing.” Here was the main point I needed to get across, the way in which I would retain Carver’s loyalty. “Shall I send a Circle mage to help the apostate? Or do you want to leave your sister’s life in someone else’s hands?”

“She would not want to be in the Circle. She would rather die.”

“Oh, thanks to her ‘courageous’ actions, the Circle is no longer an option for Marian Hawke. As Champion of Kirkwall, she will have an active political role and will be almost my equal.” I exaggerated, and he looked horrified. “Is there some reason she should not be in a position of power?”

“No… I suppose I should be used to it by now, but I’ve hated her for years. I hoped the Order would be a way for me to escape her and to use the training we did to help me fight against blood mages. But I can never get away from her. She’s always there.”

“She could die, and you could be set free from the obligation,” I prodded.

“No. My mother would never forgive me. Marian is all she has left, and even though they barely even know each other… I wouldn’t let my own hatred get in the way of my mother’s happiness. I can keep an eye on her, though,” he said, trying to become a sycophant again.

I stared at him for several long moments before standing up. Carver stood up at the same time, and I walked to the door and opened it. “You will be confined to the Gallows for two weeks. You will tell me everything you know about Marian Hawke and the apostate she is traveling with, and – ”

“Which one?” he interrupted.

“What do you mean, which one?”

“I believe there are two,” he said in a sheepish voice. If he was giving up the details so easily, he would be easy to crack for the rest.

“In that case, you will tell me about the two apostates she is traveling with, and do not leave out a single detail.” Fighting was not the only way to find out what was truly in someone’s heart – it was just as easy to hear about the fights of the past and figure out why mages operated the way they did.

“I’m sorry,” he said as I walked out the door, but I stopped him before he could get too far.

“I’ll send someone to help your sister.”

“Thank you,” he said in what sounded like a teary voice, but no wetness emerged from his eyes. I could not tell if he meant it, or what I would have sounded like in that situation, but I knew exactly who to go to. Orsino cultivated a love of healing among his senior enchanters, and I would spare one of my best for Hawke’s sake.

She was a sister. She had a brother, and more importantly, she had a brother who I was sworn to protect. For his sake, I would keep her alive – but I would not hesitate to kill her for his sake if the situation arose, as well.


	18. What I Never Had

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is technically against the game, but I headcanon that Leandra Hawke lives shortly into Act 3 instead of dying in Act 2. Her quest is coming up soon, though.

Two days later, I found myself venturing over towards the Hawke residence, seeking answers. I had heard no word on whether the newly titled Champion had awoken, and whether the healing mage and two templars I had sent were helping. It was an unusual task for me to do, but now that the viscount was dead, I was the sole source of power in the city and I would need to keep it that way. To protect the city from the mages, to protect the mages from their own stupidity and their curse. I knocked on the door several times before it opened.

“Greetings, Knight-Commander,” a dwarf opened the door. “This is the Hawke residence, what can I do for you?”

So Hawke already had servants working for her… she was rising through the echelons of society rather quickly, almost too quickly for my liking. In these new days, with the Qunari ejected from the city, I would need to establish order with a firm hand, bring this mage to heel. And yet I had promised her Championship in front of the entire city. It would be a precarious balance, but somehow I would need to work with this Hawke. I would need to control her even as she roamed free of the Circle. It was a delicate situation, something I knew I could only understand now that I had been Knight-Commander for eighteen years. I would have this situation under control.

“I am here to see Marian Hawke,” I said.

“She’s still asleep. The healers say she’ll wake up today, though,” he said. So my sources had not been wrong. The templars I had sent had given me reliable information, and they would be rewarded for it – as soon as I figured out what I was going to do with Marian Hawke. “Would you like to come in?”

I nodded and he led me past the foyer. It was impressively redecorated, and the formerly abandoned house was beginning to reclaim some of its former glory. The fire was snapping and crackling in the fireplace and a large brown mabari hound slept nearby. It occurred to me that this mabari, a status symbol in Ferelden, was probably doing far more work for her than the idea of her mother’s previously noble line. The idea that anyone who could be trusted by a mabari was worthy of nobility, while not extremely prevalent outside of Ferelden, was at least known to the majority of Kirkwall’s citizens.

I observed the mabari for a moment before my eyes drifted to the walls. Only one picture hung on the wall; it depicted a family of five, two parents and three children, sketched by hand and it looked like the paper had been crumpled and torn in some areas, but it was framed in a grand way over the staircase. I could hear voices upstairs and recognized the two templars and a few others, but I didn’t hear the voice that had confronted me so boldly two days ago. So she was still asleep, then.

A woman emerged from the kitchen, stirring a pot of stew. She looked startled as she saw me and put the stew down on the countertop, brushing her hands on her skirts and coming over to address me. “Knight-Commander, what brings you to my home?”

“Leandra Amell, I assume?” I wanted to see how loyal she was to her dead husband, to her children. To see if she was really a stranger to Marian like Carver had claimed.

“Leandra Hawke. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said, and she reached out her hand, yet she couldn’t resist letting out a small chuckle.

“Is something funny?” I could hardly think of anything less funny than the situation she was in, except perhaps a demon attack.

“I’m just thinking about the last time I had a templar in my home. It didn’t end nearly as well – although, at that point, there were three apostates under my roof.” She paused, thinking of how to be friendly or social or something. I could tell that she had been brought up nobly from how she was trying to read me, attempting to figure out why I was in her house. “Can I offer you some stew? I made Marian’s favorite. She’s going to wake up today.”

So she was probing to see if I knew about her daughter. “Yes, I’d heard. I wanted to pay her a visit.”

“She’s still asleep,” Leandra began, then her voice began to falter. For all her imposed nobility, she seemed to still be a mother worried about her child. “The healers said she’d definitely wake up today.”

“I need to speak with her about the… about what happened with the Arishok.”

“Please… go easy on her. I know she’s a mage, but she’s my only child left. I thank you for helping with Carver, but since I lost Bethany…”

“I have no intention of killing your daughter. If I had that intention, I would not have waited until she had the opportunity to recover. She is quite the powerful mage, and contrary to what some people believe, it is not my hobby to fight mages at the peak of their power.”

Leandra looked relieved and heaved a sigh. “Thank you… I don’t know what I was thinking. I mean, Marian always believed in what her father said, but I haven’t known a kind templar in many years.”

And by kind, of course, she meant the kind who wouldn’t take her child away. The kind who would protect her little family at the potential expense of many. “I understand,” I said – for, in some way, I could feel my mother’s words in hers. The words of a mother just trying to keep her daughter in her care, although it seemed Leandra at least put some thought into it before endangering so many people. The only reason her family was intact was because of the odd situation involving the Arishok, and she knew it as well as I did. “I am curious – what did your husband say that would have encouraged your daughter to do such a thing?”

She smiled in remembrance. “He always said there were two ways to be a mage outside of the Circle. A mage could fade into obscurity and evade all templar notice, or become such a large presence and force that the templars couldn’t hurt them anymore. He chose the former, but I suppose I always knew Marian would choose the latter. She’s too big of a personality to stay hidden.”

“And the third option – becoming a blood mage?”

“We never talked about that one,” she said softly, then clarified. “Not that he didn’t talk to the girls about it, he showed them how to not use blood magic and told them in no uncertain terms what would happen if they did. Just because they weren’t brought up in a Circle doesn’t mean they didn’t have a healthy fear of demons.”

“The girls? Do you have another daughter?” Even though I had Carver’s account of his family, this was a solid way to find out if he was telling the truth. My eyes found the drawing on the wall again. I could pick out Leandra and a young male mage who, to my surprise, looked somewhat familiar, and there were three children there. Even though I had heard that the other girl had died, I wanted the story from the mother. “Is she a mage as well?”

“She was.”

Because I didn’t want Leandra to know I was testing the validity of her son’s story, I pretended to be shocked. I pretended that I noticed the past tense and instantly my mind filled with the images of demons, the way my sister had looked when she was ripping heads off of innocent people. The way she became so fully possessed that she lost all vestige of herself. Was there an abomination in the Hawke family? “How did she die?” I asked.

“Not the way you’re thinking,” Leandra retorted. “When we were fleeing from Lothering, Marian and Carver managed to get most of the darkspawn in our way. But an ogre tried to grab me, and Bethany… she flung herself at it instead. She was never good at attacking spells like Marian was, only good at healing…” My mind flashed back to the way Carver said he had been trained by fighting one mage and getting healed by another. His sisters. “The ogre paused for a moment. She had every opportunity in the world to use blood magic, but she didn’t. And it slammed her head into the ground – ” She took in a deep breath. “The templar with us was impressed that she didn’t use blood magic. He said a prayer over her body.”

“You traveled with a templar?” I wondered briefly if that templar had ever crossed my path. If I would ever be able to chide him for allowing not one but two apostate mages to become his allies on a whim.

Leandra explained, “Ser Wesley, Guard Captain Aveline’s first husband. We came to Kirkwall together – by chance, so it wasn’t even like we knew him beforehand.”

An oddity – templars were not usually allowed to marry, and if they did, they generally stayed among the lower ranks because they had more than their duties on their minds. “Did he not attack on sight?”

“We made a truce. Marian… well, she threatened him that if he touched her sister, she would offer a practical demonstration of how well his armor conducted electricity.”

“She said almost the same thing to me. We spoke briefly before she fought the Arishok – she told me that if anything happened to her brother, she would do the same to me.”

Leandra’s face resembled a mixture of pride in her child and horror that she spoke to me this way. “I apologize – Marian was always responsible for keeping the twins safe, and she takes that responsibility very seriously. Even though she and Carver have hated each other since they were children.”

“They hate each other?” In his situation, I could see a bit of myself. A templar growing up under the tutelage of an older sister who could wield magic. I sometimes wished my situation could have come from hate – but no, I loved Amelia, and I foolishly believed that she loved me as well.

“It was all Malcolm and I could do to keep them from hurting each other. Their emotions are strong and they don’t hesitate, which means that we had to pull them apart more than a handful of times.” She sighed wistfully – was she missing these days? “It was easier when they were children. Now, when they fight, I can’t do much of anything. But when they were little, I could stop them. I could make them get along, whether or not they wanted to.”

“They tried to… you realize the danger of your children fighting, yes?” For someone who seemed to know a great deal about magic, her responses were coming far more from emotion than a desire to see others safe from mages.

“I couldn’t get them to stop even if I wanted to. I don’t know how well you know Carver, but as determined as he is, Marian is equally so, if not more. The two of them… well, they haven’t really fought since Bethany started doing magic. Then, they nearly killed each other.”

“They nearly killed each other?” I exclaimed.

“Carver hated that Bethany had magic. He was already resentful of Marian, but when he called Bethany an abomination… it took us a while to peel them apart. Malcolm and I… even though he was used to the shenanigans in the Circle, nothing like this ever happened. Mage children and normal children never mixed. And when they mixed, they aren’t exactly a great combination.”

“I know what you mean,” I said, but in the end I didn’t at all. I didn’t know a happy ending for a story where a mage child was raised by supportive parents and siblings and no one got hurt, and no one got killed. It seemed otherworldly that a mage child could succeed in a family, but… It had to be an anomaly. It would not ordinarily work. It couldn’t. Then I thought of something. “Did you… how did your husband leave the Circle?”

“A templar helped us escape. A good friend of Malcolm’s. He told the other templars that Malcolm died in an – ”

“An escape attempt,” I thought back, remembering the name Malcolm and how the other enchanters had mourned the man who had taught the children so well. And the templar who had done it… he had died with no strikes on his record. I knew at that moment who she was talking about, even though I hadn’t thought about the templar in years. Maurevar Carver. They gave his name to their son. They had preserved his name. He had a legacy of creating a family, even though it went against every single tenet of the Templar Order. He hadn’t just saved lives, he had made it possible for those lives to be happy. And yet, if he had been alive and standing in the room next to me…

Before I could think of anything else to say, a voice shouted down from the top floor. I didn’t recognize it but assumed it must have been one of the mages. “She’s awake,” the voice yelled. A moment later: “She’s herself!” Leandra’s breath caught in her throat and I started to move forward.

“He was a good man,” she interjected before I could begin to climb the stairs. “Malcolm. He… he held a knife over Marian’s throat and sent her into the Fade a week before he died. He was so sick, but instead of using the lyrium to help himself or give himself a bit more time… Carver held one for Bethany. I can see them holding the knives, bright silver on the girls’ throats. But they opened their eyes.” She reached out and grabbed my hand. “She’s Harrowed. The both of them were. Ten minutes. They went in together and came out together.” A pause. “Please don’t take her away from me now.”

She walked up the stairs at the same pace as me, quickly outstripping me as we opened the door. The two templars saluted as I walked in, and the mages were all talking. I hadn’t realized how many there would be – three mages stood around Hawke’s bedside, and as soon as we opened the door, the mabari came bounding into the room.

“Barkspawn,” she laughed, sounding so weak yet holding up her noninjured arm. The mabari pounced on the bed, oblivious to the ring of mages and templars around her, and quickly settled down under her right hand. “Hey, Barkie, how are you? You doing okay, boy? No one hurt you?”

“Sweetheart, you’ve got a visitor,” Leandra said. She looked up and smiled briefly at her mother before turning to me.

“Knight-Commander. Nice of you to drop by, but I can’t say I’m surprised,” she said in a raspy voice. She winced, and a man with an obvious Anderfels appearance who I recognized from the day she had fought the Arishok reached over her to check the bandage on her shoulder. I noticed a parallel scar on her other shoulder, although that one was oddly shaped like… a hand? “Yeah, that’s what you guys do,” she said as her eyes followed mine. “Holy Smite. I was eleven. Almost died, but as you’re beginning to see, I’m a little hard to get rid of.” She coughed a little, and the mabari with the absurd name turned to look up at her. 

“I was coming to discuss what I said after your battle with the Arishok.”

“What in the world were you thinking?” Leandra interjected, but Marian just gave her a smile.

“I’m not sure if you were still aware of this part, but I named you the Champion of Kirkwall, and this has several implications for you.”

“I’m not joining the Circle,” she huffed. “I don’t feel a need to get abused in uniform.” I noticed her mother’s face blanch.

“I apologize,” she tried to say, but Hawke cut her off.

“Don’t,” she said, then smiled at me. “So, what happens now?”

“You will be allowed a sort of provisional life outside the Circle.” It had been an extremely difficult decision to make, but with the rumors flying about that the Circle was becoming a prison, I couldn’t get away with squirreling her away there. In this battle, at least, she had won, but she would have to live on my terms.

“Freedom?” she rasped. Her eyes lit up with sudden understanding.

“Yes, but with that, you must understand that if you are ever consorting with demons or aiding or abetting blood mages, I will be forced to act against you. For now, though, we are allies.”

Instantly, she responded: “You’ll have to promise me something.”

So she wanted a deal. It was always intriguing to hear what they wanted, and it usually gave me a way to fight against them better. These situations did not exactly occur frequently outside of the Circle, but even within the Circle, the political quagmire of all the different factions of mages often meant that I could tell who believed in what by making deals with their friends. I would humor her, for the moment. “Yes?”

“None of the mages in here will get prosecuted. My friends – Anders,” she motioned to the man from before with the accent who, if he could cast menacing spells with his eyes, would have killed me several times over, “and Merrill,” an elf cheerily arranging flowers on the bedside table and tucking one lopsidedly behind her ear, “will stay free. I’ll keep an eye on them. If they do blood magic in front of me, I’ll kill them before you can.”

Who was she to deal with me? I nearly snapped back before I realized that she, technically, had won some power from me. I had given her the power to become the Champion, and so I could not imprison her. But her friends? There was no guarantee their morals were equally as upstanding as hers when it came to blood magic, nor was there a guarantee she wouldn’t change once she figured out what her magic could truly do.

I knew I would have to use her friends to get her to obey. It was a classic templar technique – the mages naturally formed bonds in the Circle, and if one was threatened, the others could usually be kept in line. I looked at the two mages – the male was avoiding my eyes now, tending to Hawke’s wound with a steady stream of healing magic as she absentmindedly itched at it. The elf was staring at me curiously while Hawke kept her eyes locked on me as well. So did the two templars in the room. It was as much a professional evaluation as it was an adjustment of leadership roles in the city.

“I will offer you a one-time deal, Marian Hawke.” She pushed herself up on her elbows and focused her eyes keenly on me. “You and the two other mages in this room will be allowed to live outside of the Circle, with some restrictions. If any of the three of you attack a templar for any reason or are seen to be consorting with demons or known blood mages, all three of you will be killed. Do you accept this deal?”

“We do,” Marian said, although Anders looked horrified. He stared at me then, and I saw a coldness in his eyes that I hadn’t seen in a while from a mage. Under my command, no mage looked at me outright except Orsino – now, this one was looking at me, his fingers still zapping bits of blue energy at Marian, and I began to doubt the validity of the agreement.

“Additionally, I expect you to keep the peace. If there is any sort of conflict in the city, I expect you to get involved. Your friends may help if they wish, but since they do not bear your title, they are not bound as you are.”

“I understand,” Marian responded, then let out a small giggle. “It’s not like I’ve ever helped Kirkwall before. This will definitely be the first time.”

I huffed and went to walk away. Leandra Hawke was standing in the doorframe with a big bowl of soup. She smiled tentatively at her daughter, and Marian Hawke’s eyes stayed locked on me. They followed me out the door just as the two templars and the one Circle mage did.

They looked to me for guidance. I did not know what to say at the moment, for as much as I knew Marian Hawke was capable of following rules to save her friends, I knew she was also rebellious. She was not too afraid for her own safety to act. And if she had a motive, I had no doubt she would take the city by storm. It was only for her friends that the city would be safe – and so I would need to keep them safe.

“What are you looking at?” I said when we got to the hallway. We left the Hawke house and the templars flanked the mage as they returned to the city. But I kept looking back. My blood cried out that there was an injustice going on. I knew three mages were running free, at least one of whom was capable of killing the leader of the Qunari.

I pushed the red down. I felt it bubbling up in me and buzzing along my back. I would need to take it with me to protect the city, I knew. I would need to commission a sword, something greater and grander than anything I had ever used before. Something suitable for a powerful Knight-Commander who would be able to defend her entire city with one well-placed blow.


	19. The Cacophony of Red

I had to go to a dwarf to create my sword. Only a dwarf would be able to deal with the little idol without getting seduced by power – and even dwarves could be susceptible. Bartrand who sold me the idol had left Hawke behind in the Deep Roads, I had heard. He had left her to die and sought to keep the power himself.

There was a rather unique source of power coming from the sword. I could recognize the lyrium, even though it didn’t look like it. I could hear the song in my blood as soon as it entered the room. It was unusually potent, and perhaps changed by its interaction with another substance to make it red. The science was not anything that mattered to me, though – all I cared to see was how well it would serve me. How well it would serve my city.

I entered the shop not in my usual uniform, and the shopkeeper didn’t recognize me right away. “Be right with ya,” he yelled, and although this was far from a usual reaction to seeing me, I was all right with that. It meant I could keep my idol secret just a little bit longer. I could keep its power to myself, make it seem like my strength alone was doubling every day and my power came from the strength of my own mind and body rather than relying on another.

He finally finished his work and came over. Covered in soot and with several fingers bandaged, I wondered how he had been recommended to me as the best blacksmith in the city. I did need a recommendation – the Tranquil and their special enchanting branch, the Formari, made templar armor, and I had never had a reason to stray from my armor before.

“I need to commission a sword,” I said. “Broadsword. Distinctive, if possible. Perhaps with a hole by the hilt?” I had discovered in my many years of power that it was useful to be able to pick up a sword from many angles. A blade was useful in many ways, and if it was dropped in a battle, another way to pick it up would help save lives. My seventy were done years ago, but I had dedicated my life to saving even more.

He looked me over. “And enchantments? Got anything you need me to put in it?”

“I do,” I said, withdrawing the idol from my pocket. It was wrapped in leather and tied with a flimsy thong that I pulled apart quite easily. The dwarf reached out a hand to take it, and I had to hold my hand very still. I had to make sure not to shake. It felt like a part of myself was being removed – when had it become this important?

“What is this?” he asked, turning it over and over.

“Enchanted lyrium,” I said. It was my best guess, after all.

He took another look at me and then looked down at the idol once more. He cited a price twice my yearly salary and took half the coin in advance. I sold the locket and got the other half, then all that was left to do was wait.

The waiting period was increasingly difficult. I felt like a recruit again, at the beginning of my journey to become a templar, not at all physically in shape. I found myself tiring after training, straining to cast a Holy Smite. More doses of lyrium got me almost to the height I had reached, but not quite. Nothing, it appeared, was the same as the little red idol.

The first time I touched the sword, it felt like another arm of mine that I hadn’t noticed was missing. I picked it up and it was light enough for me to lift in one arm – no, my strength was back, the strength I had lost was all regained in one instant. It felt almost… magical, which sent a lurch of fear into my heart. Was magic behind the power of this sword?

But the sword helped me dispatch of many apostates, many blood mages. With the sword’s power I could cut through mages like butter and the more they fought, the more I was able to fight back. The sword seemed to feed off of their energy, and I was able to pass off the vaguely red glow of the blade as an early sunset or the reflection of a fire spell.

It was not so easily passed off in my mind. I was afraid, yes – but I was far more afraid of what would happen if I lost the strength I had gained. If the sword was taken away and I began to deteriorate again. I decided that I would never go anywhere without it. It would be the only weapon I needed. We would be partners in saving Kirkwall – and no one would need to know that it sounded different.

Lyrium sings. That is a fact I had known since taking my first dose so many years ago, but the blue liquid sang a sweet melody as it flowed down the throat and coursed through the veins. The effects waxed and waned with the dose of treatment. But the red… I knew it was lyrium from how it sang, but without even ingesting it I could hear it, I could hear the swaying of violins and the pounding of drums. It continued all day, all night, and only when I listened to it intently could I hear the way the violins sounded just a little bit screechy, a little bit... off.


	20. Love is the Weakest Link

It had come time, at last, to deal with Samson. A weak link in the chain of the Templar Order for some time. He had been valuable at the beginning, but over the years, his behavior had tended towards the strange and extreme. Hanging around the Circle tower looking for mages… there was only one explanation I could believe now that I held the note in my hands.

I called him to my office. He came in, looking ragged, forlorn. Looking out the window. “Knight-Commander?” he said in a tentative voice.

I didn’t bother to sweet-talk him or try to get him to confess. He had been a templar long enough that he most likely already knew where I was going. “Samson, it has come to my attention that there has been some misbehavior on your record.”

He tried very hard to craft a mask of disbelief, of shock that he was being accused of anything less than perfection. “Mis…behavior?”

“I have the note, Samson. You were planning to help two mages in love run away with each other.” It struck me that if someone had had this exact conversation with a templar named Maurevar Carver, the Hawke siblings would never have been born. Except Marian. That thorn in my side would not have gone away so easily.

He looked around, almost as if he was expecting me to produce his mage friend and the friend’s lover out of thin air. “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

So he would try lying. But I would have him. “Are you denying that this is your handwriting, Samson?”

He looked everywhere but the paper at first. But then his eyes found the parchment, found the place where his name incriminated him in my eyes and the eyes of every sane templar. Nothing good came of loving a mage. It would be easiest to break the ties now, to leave and never return.

“The mage you were writing to is on her way to the Starkhaven Circle of Magi, and the lover whose notes you were passing will be transferred to Ferelden on the next boat,” I said, ending his fostering of the mages’ erstwhile romance. I watched his face fall.

“Maddox will… I can’t even say goodbye?” The emotion in his voice disgusted me. Templars were supposed to protect their charges from demonic possession, and that was it. Nothing more. No human relationships of any kind. It had been a rule since long before I took over as Knight-Commander, and would continue long after that day.

My retribution was swift. “Not to either of them. But you can say goodbye to the rest of your templar brothers-in-arms.”

“I’m getting transferred?” A brief flash of hope in his eyes that against all odds, he would be transferred away and never have to face me again, that he would perhaps even get to see one of the two mages again.

“No. You are getting discharged.” I took a pause to hammer in the true meaning of what was about to happen to him. “Dishonorably.”

His eyes opened wide. “Dishonorably? That means…”

“No lyrium. You will have your bags out of the Gallows by tonight and you will deliver your sun shield to me personally.” He slunk out the door and was back within a few hours, carrying his shield and a burlap sack. He deposited the shield down at my feet, respectfully, then scampered out like a common beggar. It was hard to tell from looking at him in everyday clothes with his drawn face that he had ever been a templar.

I went through his supplies later. He had drained every vial of lyrium he had. It would help him for the coming few days, to be sure – but in a few days, his mind would betray him. He would hallucinate, see imaginary things to fight. He would be his own worst enemy. A mind used to lyrium denied its drug is a potent poison. The threat of discharge maintained order in the ranks, kept the templars together. No outbursts or any shenanigans outside of work for weeks. I realized that sometimes it is better to sacrifice the weak link and pull the rest together rather than try for a goal, no matter how lofty, of saving everyone.


	21. Who is Fit to Live and Serve

“Knight-Commander?” The templar on guard’s voice interrupted me during a routine meeting with Carver Hawke several months later.

“Yes?” I asked.

“The… Erm, the Champion is here to see you,” he said in a hesitant voice. He, like the rest of the templars, knew that the sound of Marian Hawke’s title was enough to incur my wrath. If he was using the title, she had to be right there.

“Send her in,” I said, but the words were scarcely out of my mouth before Marian strode in, using the back of her hand to brush her bangs from her eyes.

“I’m leaving,” Carver huffed, trying to get past his sister through the doorway. She stood in front of him, solid, unmoving, flanked by three of her companions. I recognized Brother Sebastian from the Chantry – there were far more sisters than brothers, after all, so they were more noticeable – and I knew Guard Captain Aveline, but I didn’t know the elf with oddly glowing lyrium tattoos.

“No, you’re not,” Hawke mumbled. Carver tried to shove past her, but stopped abruptly when he got a better look at her.

“What in the Void are you wearing?” he growled. I looked at Marian a second time, and my eyes caught on a red tunic she was wearing that was clearly ripped in several places and looked like it belonged in a brothel far more than it belonged on someone who was theoretically supposed to hold a position of authority in the city.

“I can explain,” she grunted, then pushed past him to approach my desk. The closer she approached, the more I realized the tunic was not red at all. It had begun as white, perhaps cream, something silky with sleeves cut off above the elbow and so much blood… “But if you would get off your damned asses and kill blood mages instead of sitting around here polishing your shiny swords, I might not have to do all your dirty work for you.”

“Explain,” I interjected.

“I just had to take out a blood mage who had… six victims and he summoned enough demons to practically fill a warehouse but it had to be me, right? Sparklefingers over here had to do it?”

“Tell me everything,” I said.

“Emeric – Ser Emeric – ” she corrected after Carver shot her a glance, “was on the trail of a few women who disappeared years ago. The mage was hunting them. For a disgusting purpose.”

“That means a lot coming from you,” Carver sneered.

“Would you just shut up and listen?” She said in a harsh voice, then seemed to spit out the story as quickly as possible. “It was a mage named Quentin. He was working with Gascard du Puis, they’re both dead, but they managed to kill six women and build them into a… creature that he wanted to be his dead wife…”

Carver looked like he wanted to vomit, and even I felt like it was not too far-fetched of a reaction. “That is advanced magic,” I said, wondering where he had trained, or who he had trained with. A mage reanimating stitched-together bodies could not be working alone. The news of Emeric’s death did not even go in one ear. I couldn’t afford to concentrate on him.

Marian Hawke took in a deep breath. “We got there as soon as we could, but we couldn’t save any of the victims. He was a sadist – a disgusting murderer – he sewed them together while they were still alive – ”

“Are you getting to a point with all this? We see blood mages every day. It’s not that unusual,” Carver interrupted. His tone told me that he was trying too hard to prove himself, to sound like he knew what he was doing. Like he was some kind of superman who fought against blood mages every day and won.

Marian steeled herself, taking a deep breath. Sebastian got closer to her and I did not fail to notice the way his hand found hers at their sides. Were they… more than friends? Only Marian Hawke would try to seduce a Chantry brother, I thought. Were her clothes an indication of a failed seduction?

She started speaking so quickly it felt like she was vomiting words. They flowed out of her mouth almost quicker than I could understand them, and while they started out softly, as she continued to speak they peaked at a crescendo of anger and grief. “He left white lilies for the victims. No one was seen again after they got the white lilies. I… they were on the table this morning. On the breakfast table. And Mother was gone. I got there as quickly as I could. She fought, there was a blood trail, but how was she supposed to fight against a blood mage – I found the warehouse, there were five other bodies to step over but their wounds hadn’t been fatal – and then I saw him and he had Mother’s head on the thing – he told me if I attacked him she would die too but she was already dead, I was too late, but she knew it was me, she helped me and when he died she only had a few moments but she told me… she loved you, Carver, she told me to tell you that, I held her until she died and she wasn’t in pain…”

The first words out of Carver’s mouth were a growl. “Please tell me that bastard got what he deserved.”

“I burned his heart while he still breathed. Fenris helped,” she motioned towards the elf who flexed his fingers absentmindedly in a gesture I recognized as grabbing onto something, perhaps even a heart. Marian’s voice was steely and cold, almost like mine sounded after coming back from a raid. So she too reveled in the violence, in the way she could hurt the one who had hurt her loved ones.

Carver paced back and forth, back and forth, not looking at his sister even once. He opened and closed his mouth several times without speaking before he finally said, “Take me to her.”

“You don’t – Carver, this is not a time to not believe what I’m saying,” Marian said in an exasperated voice. “Don’t you think I would know my own mother?”

“It was Leandra,” Aveline chimed in. It was the first time she had spoken, but her shaking voice told me that although she was used to fighting ordinary criminals in the Guard, this was a new kind of murder for her to see. The Guard never knew the horrors of what we faced. It was something I told them all the time when they challenged us, when they said templars had too much authority. This type of murder was something they could never handle.

“I want to see the… I want to see it,” Carver said, looking to me. I considered for a moment whether it would be useful to see the blood mage’s haven, whether Carver would even be able to handle it, before thinking of the alternative. If he had not seen the horror of his own family slain by magic, he would not be able to have a passion for the Order like I did. It was necessary to do away with his innocence in exchange for making him a better warrior, a stronger templar. Someone who could fight a mage not as someone who saw the mage as his sister but as someone who had murdered his mother. It was essential he saw the corpses.

“We will follow you to the warehouse,” I said, in a tone that made no excuses for the fact that this was an order. To my surprise, Hawke immediately turned on her heel and walked out. We proceeded out of the Gallows, finding that there was, in fact, a trail of blood as we progressed through the marketplace. There were clear signs of a fight near the warehouse, and a larger puddle of dragged blood as we walked through the door. The smell was horrifying, the scent of decomposing bodies, and Hawke barely looked at the five bodies underneath white sheets that were laid out near the walls. They all had a human shape – he had not turned them into demons, but he had clearly murdered them.

In the back, there were two more bodies under sheets. One was a human shape but obviously missing a head, and Hawke made no move to uncover that one as she walked towards the other. The basic shape was human, but it looked odd, as if it had been enchanted. She pulled off the sheet.

Many beginning templars would have vomited at the sight of the abomination the mage had created. Each appendage was crudely sewn onto the others, with what even I could recognize as Leandra Hawke’s head stitched onto what looked like the neck of an elven woman. The eyes, glassy and vacant, stared out from behind a wedding veil. The abomination was in a dress. A wedding dress. Here, at last, was the motive – but Carver did not understand.

“Why is she… it… wearing a wedding dress? Marian?” he asked when he didn’t get an immediate response.

“Before he died, he talked to us… he said he wanted to rebuild his dead wife. He was attracted to different… things about different women. He was attracted to it. And several desire demons were involved.”

At this final note, upon hearing of the mage desecrating his mother’s body for what seemed to be sexual purposes more than anything else, Carver snapped at his sister. “And you had no idea this was going on? You couldn’t do anything? Miss I-can-save-Kirkwall-with-my-eyes-closed? You couldn’t do a damn thing for your own mother? Our mother?”

“I tried, damn it,” she said, gesturing to her body. “I was ready to seduce him myself if he would let Mother go alive. You think I didn’t know about this? The note he left with the flowers… I look like her and I’m younger, and I’m a girl, and I was willing to give up my virginity for her but you can’t see that?”

Carver wrinkled his nose. “You think you can do everything. You could just waltz in here and cure this bastard of his blood magic by a little roll in the hay?”

“That’s disgusting,” Marian responded, although she never clarified whether she was talking about the idea of having sex with a monster or the language Carver was using.

“No, you’re disgusting. You come in here covered in blood, what if you were doing blood magic too? Did you try to revive her? Did you?” He sounded almost hopeful, a mix of the templar wishing his sister hadn’t done blood magic and the brother wishing she had, anything to bring his mother back.

Marian’s voice sounded cold but calm. “No, Carver. You know that I didn’t. I didn’t with Bethany, and Mother was in… she was in no shape even if that was possible.”

“Don’t you even bring up her name. Yeah, you did a hell of a job saving Bethany. I remember you freezing like that when that ogre picked her up. She was your sister too, you know? And after you stole her away from me to make a little club of Daddy’s little princesses, the least you could have done was save her life – ”

“You know damn well I couldn’t have done anything for Bethany. If I had aimed I could have hit her as easily as I could have hit the ogre. You don’t shoot explosive magic when you have loved ones nearby,” she said, and her voice wavered just a bit.

“Wow. You’re just like all the other robes in the Circle. You’ve got an excuse for everything. Blood on the whore outfit? That was from – ”

“I held our mother as she died in my arms! She was literally coming apart at the seams and you know I’m shit at healing!” she spat out, her voice sounding like she was crying but her eyes somehow remaining dry.

“Excuse me, but I was talking. Do you want me to shut you up with a Holy Smite? I remember how much you like those.” Marian opened and closed her mouth. “Yeah, not too much to say now that you remember I’m a templar now? Where’s all that bravado? Where’s the fight you always gave me when we were kids? You’re not so brave now that Mother’s dead. Now that you’ve killed everyone around you? You’re a fucking coward,” he said, and before I could even react, he had walked up to his sister with strong, purposeful steps and pushed her to the ground.

“Marian!” Sebastian exclaimed.

“And you… you disgust me,” Carver spoke to Sebastian. “You want her – her – a mage who can’t do anything right? Look at her,” he gesticulated at Marian Hawke’s prone form laying on the ground. She clutched onto her staff with both hands. I reached over and touched Carver’s shoulder, a silent rebuke, trying to get him to realize that a mage on the ground was still powerful and could still harm or kill him, but he was oblivious as he shrugged my hand away. It was clear his right mind had departed – but what he did next would show me whether he was suitable for leadership.

“Fight back,” he said, shuffling near his sister, shooting out a kick towards her leg. “Fight back,” he repeated as he kicked her more and more. “Come on, damn you, fight back! Fight me!” he yelled, continuing to kick her.

Then he stopped, suddenly. “I understand. You’re too much of a coward to fight me. Turns out being an abomination doesn’t mean you have to be brave.”

Marian Hawke held her staff tighter for just a moment, and I put a hand on my pommel, preparing to fight her once and for all. Carver looked down at her and sneered. She deliberately, slowly, dropped the staff next to her and looked up. Her hair drooped into her eyes, stringy and matted with blood and dirt from the floor. Tears poured down her face and blood and mucus leaked from her nose.

Sebastian reached his hand down and lifted her up, settling her on her feet. She looked over at Carver, whose face mirrored the shock in hers. Neither spoke a word as Sebastian brought her the staff from the floor. She leaned on the staff and looked back at her brother, Sebastian holding her elbow. She was bloodied and covered in bruises, her clothes were torn, and yet she had never looked stronger. “I won’t fight you,” she croaked. “I won’t fight you over our mother’s grave.” She conjured a spark of fire on her index finger and shot it down at a corner of the sheet covering the abomination that had once been her mother. The sheet, followed by the body, erupted in flames. It struck me that this was the funeral pyre of Leandra Hawke.

With one more disdainful look at her brother, Marian left, leaning on Sebastian who held an arm around her waist and whispered something in her ear. I gave them a minute to leave before combing through the blood mage’s resources, the books that had been smuggled out of the Circle, the letters that he had received from a mysterious co-conspirator. I would find the truth, and I knew Carver would be a valuable resource in helping me.

But not in being Knight-Captain. He was too volatile, too angry to think. He would have run into a fireball just then, I had seen the way his muscles sprang into action and the way in which his mind was just a few steps behind. And it all had to do with his feelings about mages.

Carver hated them, but Cullen – the transfer from Ferelden when the mages at the Circle there had become abominations and were only saved by a fluke appearance from the Warden – feared them. In his eyes I could see the way they had tortured him back at Kinloch Hold. The bags under his eyes told me he got as little sleep as I did. And when he closed his eyes, I knew he too saw their faces, stone gray and ashy, the ones he couldn’t save.

Cullen was ordained as Knight-Captain a week later.


	22. A Premature Solution

A rather interesting proposition from Knight-Lieutenant Otto Alrik arrived on my desk not too long after. The copy was written out on parchment and obviously copied out by a Tranquil; I knew his handwriting was never neat because he simply couldn’t wait to get his thoughts out. It arrived in a neat envelope addressed to, oddly enough, “Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard.” Over twenty years since putting my family’s name aside and now it was coming up again, from someone who had no reason to use it.

I slit the parchment with the knife I kept at my desk and read it carefully, several times. He suggested a solution for the Circle, for the situation in Kirkwall that was getting more and more volatile the longer the mages were allowed to exist under First Enchanter Orsino’s rule. His belief in freedom was limiting to every non-mage citizen of Kirkwall. Every day, he and his mages challenged me, and Alrik had a solution that he claimed would be easy and painless.

He called it the Tranquil Solution. It was quite ironic that he had a Tranquil scribe copy out the work – my Tranquil assistant Elsa had worked for me for years, but out of some form of either compassion or disgust I never let her copy out the orders to make other mages Tranquil. It seemed a cruel joke of fate, but Alrik had not seen it the same way.

Over the years, he had gotten more brazen, more violent, more brash, but never before had he tried to suggest something like making all mages Tranquil. Not that the idea didn’t make sense in some vague way, not that it wouldn’t make our jobs as templars easy if all we wielded was the brand instead of the sword, but there was something at stake there. Mages – humans and elves alike – had human qualities, human personalities, human lives. They weren’t all demons, even if a greater number of them than before were falling temptation to the demons preying on them nightly.

I waited to hear from the Divine. I waited to see what her response would be, what she would send to Grand Cleric Elthina as instructions. I waited to see if she would advocate for making all mages Tranquil. Her curt reply, sent to Elthina, Alrik, and myself, said that templars existed not for mages to all die but for them to all live. Tranquility would remain, as it always had, a last resort. She would only sanction it if a mage was beyond saving.

I watched my assistant Elsa sorting through the packages arriving at my door. She had stopped several suspicious ones from arriving – one even contained a snuffling little baby nug wearing a sweater that became an unofficial pet of the Gallows for a few months – but aside from that, she had no life. She worked all day and had no home to go to at night. She lived in the closet I used to live in. She spoke to no one unless she was spoken to. She did nothing unless she was ordered. There was no difference between her and an automaton.

I returned my reply to Alrik a day later. I would not institute the Tranquil Solution. The situation was not that dire. It was better to save those who could be saved than force all mages to become the living dead. When he received my letter, the first thing out of his mouth was, “So it’s better to spare an abomination than make a mage who hasn’t succumbed yet – but will – Tranquil? You, of all people, I thought would be different.”

I would spare no abominations. But the normal mages, the ones who hadn’t killed anyone yet – it hurt me to hurt them, it hurt me when I saw them cower in fear from templars or shudder whenever a Tranquil walked by. If I could do anything to keep them from the demons, I would. I would use the new power of my sword, and I would not let my sister’s death be in vain.


	23. Letting the Dead Die

When I sold my sister’s locket, my hands shook as I slipped it off my neck for the first time since I was nine years old. It had been a birthday present. “I made the drawings,” she said, holding it out to me in her sweaty palm. I had grabbed onto it, opening the lock to find our pictures on either side. An artist, she was. An artist who drew us so happy and young, no grief etched into our faces. She left out her own panic, she left out my worry for her. Only two happy sisters, smiling.

The merchant had looked at me oddly when I gave it to him. “This is a valuable necklace.”

For more ways than one. I could hardly remember what she looked like anymore, how we looked different. We seemed to blend together in my memory, her hair curled the same as mine, her eyes, oh, her eyes, the beautiful bright blue of the lyrium that helped me stop people like her… Spoils from a dead mage. That was all it was. A dead mage who was never buried properly and whose soul still wandered.

“Will you buy it or not?”

“I will, I will,” the pawn broker said as he examined the chain and the two small heart-shaped slots with the two pictures inside. “You?” He pointed to a picture. It showed a girl with a smile and two dimples and her hair in braids and her smile wide.

“None of your business,” I replied. To be honest, I was beginning to forget which one was me and which one was my sister, so much had we become mingled in my mind. Mangled in my mind until I was no better than a demon.

Gold exchanged hands and before I turned to walk out of the store he was melting the locket down in the fire in the back. I stopped to watch the pictures burn to a crisp in seconds. Then I left. I went back to Bartrand the dwarf in the sewers of the city and handed him the gold. He handed me the idol. It felt smooth in my palm. It sang a sweet song of hurt and betrayal. It struck me that I already knew all of the words.


	24. Good Girl is Out of Reach

“Where is Orsino?” I asked when I noticed his door open, a smell of cloves wafting out from the room.

“The First Enchanter has not returned from his… excursion to the Chantry,” the templar on duty said as he poked his head through the door.

I hadn’t known Orsino was gone. I had been busy with paperwork and trying to pick apart the pieces of the idol’s song. “Who gave him permission to leave?”

“You did, Knight-Commander. You told him to get out,” he mumbled at me, but even as he spoke, I remembered that I had been angry at him when he interrupted me hours before. I hadn’t even listened to what he had said. But if he hadn’t returned to the Gallows, it meant he was planning something treasonous.

“I’ll find him,” I said, but when I stood up and walked out the door, I felt a rush of dizziness to my head. Something in the way I stood up, perhaps? It felt almost like lyrium withdrawal – I had felt minor side effects if I’d missed a day or two before – but I had just dosed this morning.

“Knight-Commander?” the templar said as he watched me hold onto the door jamb, steady myself for balance.

“I’m fine,” I said, and suddenly it struck me that I wasn’t hearing it. The humming. I started humming the tune as I walked down the steps towards the exit of the Gallows, wondering if that would help the dizziness I was feeling. It was minor, but after the death of the viscount, it was more imperative than ever that I never showed any weakness. On my way, I passed a senior enchanter with two apprentices hurrying after him. He halted abruptly when he saw me. “What are you looking at?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he replied, although his voice was smaller than usual. Almost as if he was afraid of something. “You were humming a song. It sounds familiar… yet wrong,” he said. Then he took another look at me and scurried away, the apprentices hurrying behind him like mice running back to their hiding-hole.

I stopped humming when I got into the boat. I tried to keep my gaze steady, but I kept watching the small waves in the hopes that the boat would go faster. The fact that no one had seen Orsino for two hours was worrying. Not the worst situation – I had heard no reports of a blood mage running amok – but clearly there was something going on if he wasn’t there.

I followed a group of townspeople to the marketplace. Listened to their gossiping voices talking about the First Enchanter making a speech near the Chantry. A speech? I hurried my steps. Walking faster, wishing for strength to accompany me. I parted the crowds, and the more people saw me, the more they bowed or bent their heads or made some gesture of polite obedience acknowledging me as their ruler.

And then I saw Orsino. Perched on a landing on the great steps leading up to the Chantry, gesturing widely with his hands, his grand First Enchanter robes sweeping along the floor. “You have seen the chaos of her reign – will you allow it?” was all I heard before I emerged onto the scene. It disturbed me how many people were looking at me with questions in their eyes instead of the unshakable faith they were told to have in the templars, the faith that if a templar was around, they were safe.

“Return to your homes,” I ordered, although even at that point I was aware of the fact that Orsino was looking for me to do this. Looking for me to order them around and seem like a cruel tyrant rather than just trying to maintain order. The three years since Viscount Dumar’s death hadn’t been easy, but there had been no major incidents of a blood mage with multiple victims since the death of Leandra Hawke, and with the Champion’s tentative support, there was no more chaos in Kirkwall. Without taking the title, Marian Hawke had essentially replaced the viscount’s role in keeping the city balanced – which scared me as much as it reassured the city. I looked at Orsino pointedly. “This farce is over.”

“Perhaps there might be some who disagree with you,” Orsino said enigmatically, pointing behind me. I saw Marian Hawke’s form approaching me, in her new Champion armor the nobles had commissioned. It had taken all of my self-restraint to not protest this armor that would ensure a mage could be kept safe from templars – mages’ armor was restricted to robes for a reason – but the nobles argued that after all Hawke had done for the city, she deserved armor. She deserved more than to be questioned. They were beginning to sympathize with a mage. A mage who had helped them, certainly, but still a mage. There still had to be boundaries even if she was not confined in the Circle.

“Do not hide behind the Champion,” I instructed Orsino forcefully. But he didn’t do anything. He simply stood and waited for Hawke to approach us, to stand between us, as the townspeople watched like we were players in a show.

“Sounds like you two have quite the little argument going,” she said jokingly, leaning on her staff. Her eyes darted from my face to Orsino’s.

“Treason is not an argument,” I said, walking closer to Orsino. Lately, he had been so rebellious. His spirit was forceful and he was infecting the other Circle mages. I wondered, sometimes, if my increased role in the city’s affairs had led to his increased rebellion, but perhaps he simply felt safe in his position. The problem for him was, I was safe in mine as well.

“Do you fear what she has to say?” Orsino asked scathingly as Hawke shifted from foot to foot.

“I do not fear Hawke,” I said, even though in the darkest recesses of my mind, I feared a mage in power. I feared that with Hawke in any sort of position of power, Kirkwall would become a center of mage decadence like the Tevinter Imperium and the mages would affect what remained of the free world.

“I’m still standing here, you know,” she said with a smile.

“And I assume you think you could do better. Could you? Could you balance the forces of this city?”

“It’s not balance when you tip the scales every day, when you keep my mages jailed and tormented for something they never chose in the first place!” Orsino retorted.

“Maybe I could,” Hawke said thoughtfully.

“And how well did you guard your mother? How did you protect her from a blood mage?” I regretted the words the instant they left my mouth. Hawke’s mouth opened and shut a few times and she was blinking just a bit too fast. I could tell that she was trying desperately hard to not show emotion, to not let me see that this was something that gnawed at her every day.

Orsino looked at me with a cold stare. “And what of all the mages who died under your command? Did you protect them?”

“Enough!” I barked. “As long as the city is this unbalanced, Kirkwall needs its templars more than it needs a new ruler.” I wished for Guylian’s steady tone to accompany me. I tried to think of the words he used when he told me about the three-pronged balance of Kirkwall. The mages played no part.

“And when does that end? When will you stop seeing evil in every mage?”

“When it is no longer there,” I said, folding my arms. I was done talking. If he was going to attack me, I could fight back. And if he did, we both knew who would win.

A pause from the speech – even passionate Orsino had shut his mouth. I could hear the crowd begin to murmur and mutter and get a bit louder, then hushed suddenly. They parted for an approaching figure. Grand Cleric Elthina, in her Chantry robes, smiling her peaceful grin and assessing the situation with her quickly moving eyes.

“My, my, such a terrible commotion!” she said in a soft voice that somehow echoed in the quiet that had ensued with her presence. As she had aged and her long hair had turned completely to gray, she had carefully cultivated a personality of serenity and calm. She could get anyone to do whatever she wanted simply by asking in a nice voice. She was like the gentle mother watching over the city of Kirkwall, keeping her children in line. Sometimes, it seemed like she was the only one who was stopping the city from exploding.

“This mage incites rebellion, Your Grace,” I was quick to explain. I was not going to use his name. He didn’t deserve it. “I am dealing with the matter.”

“Ah, Orsino,” she sighed gently like a grandmother soaking her old bones in a warm bath. “So frustrated… are you sure this is wise?”

Orsino spluttered a bit at being put on the spot. He knew there was no way for him to be seen as right if he contradicted the Grand Cleric. He had lost. “I… no, Your Grace,” he said in a tone I hadn’t heard from him talking to me in years. A tone that reeked of respect and sycophancy.

Elthina turned to observe the templars flanking me. “Of course not,” she told Orsino first. “Young men, please escort the First Enchanter back to the Circle. Gently, if you please,” she corrected when one man put his hand on Orsino and the mage winced.

Then she turned to me. As Orsino began to walk away, it struck me that I was alone in front of these townspeople, that there was no mage to contradict me. If Elthina thought his speaking up was unwise, perhaps she could even be persuaded to ensure he never did anything like this again. “Your Grace, he should be clapped in irons and made an example! He should not be allowed to walk the streets freely again.” I stopped short of saying that he should not think freely again.

Her response was the exact opposite of what I had been hoping for. “That’s enough, Meredith,” she scolded as if I was a naughty orphan in the Chantry, trying to smuggle something in or out of the building. “This demeans us all, surely you can see that? Go back to the Gallows and calm down,” she said. “Like a good girl.”

Ire bubbled in my bones as some greater instinct compelled me to bow and then exit as quickly as possible, catching up with Orsino in the process. I walked faster until he was behind me. I couldn’t believe what I had just been told – me, the authority of the city for the past three years, the one reason why the city was not falling apart! And I was being told to be a “good girl.” Like I had been told when I punched little kids in the Chantry when I was little. Be a good girl, and my problems would go away. The world is made better by good girls. But I didn’t believe it. Not then, and especially not now.

Being a good girl was what had made me obey my parents when they wanted to hide my sister from the templars. Being a good girl was what stopped me from attempting to arrest the viscount when he took Guylian and Aaron into custody. Being a good girl had led me to this path, but only in the ways that I broke from it. If I had stayed a good girl, I would have continued to live in the Chantry. Alrik would be Knight-Commander, and then Orsino would truly have something to complain about instead of insipidly whining about nothing. A city ruled by a good girl would only last a moment before being blown to bits.

Being a good girl was how people died. Being a good girl was not an option.


	25. One Mistake Too Many

I knew she existed years ago. Thrask was a good man, a good templar, but never able to resist the temptations of the flesh. Never for me, of course – he had no desire to be beheaded – but he was a frequent customer of the Blooming Rose and it was no surprise to me when I heard that he had impregnated one of the workers there. A portion of his salary went to the pregnant girl, which was unusual, but matched his generosity.

I knew the little girl existed but had never met her, had never seen her, didn’t know her name. Thrask spoke of her sometimes, mostly in the years she was younger. As she got older, I believed he had less to talk about, not that he had anything to hide. It was a product of my naïve mind that I stopped asking about the girl, stopped wondering why Thrask was getting more and more distant, creeping around in corners, never meeting me in the eye.

But then I saw him crying. Thrask never cried. He was never that type of person. Not even when he was injured. But he was speaking to Marian Hawke, who was in the Gallows for some reason I couldn’t understand – and when she left the Gallows with a heavy step, I saw the tears falling from his face.

“What happened?” I asked. He clutched a piece of parchment in his hand, holding it fast. Clutching onto it like there was nothing in the world but the words written on the scrap.

“Nothing,” he tried to say, but I quickly leaned down and caught a few words of the parchment.

“Your daughter? Something happened with your daughter?” I tried to be polite. The fact that he had a daughter was common knowledge to those of us who had been with the Order for years, but most of the newer recruits hadn’t been around long enough to know she existed. She must have been seventeen or eighteen?

Thrask sighed. “I thought I was doing the right thing for her. Things have been so hard here lately… I didn’t want her to be subjected to it.”

Instantly, I knew what he was talking about. The lyrium in templars’ blood often led to them having mage children. It was a reason why most templars never married. Why I never married. “You hid her.”

“I had to, Meredith. I had to.”

“You didn’t have to.” I said solemnly. It was at times like these that I wished I could bring up my story, bring up my own failure. But in these new times, I had to be strong all the time. Every moment of my life. If I was awakened in the middle of the night, I had to be as steadfast as if I was wearing full armor. Being weak was no longer an option. I had nothing to say that could comfort Thrask.

Thrask sighed again and began to explain. “She would have been taken away. Taken to a different Circle and I would never have seen her again.”

“And now she’s dead,” I inferred from the combination of the tears and the way he held onto that paper as if he was dying and it was the only thing that could save him.

“And now she’s dead,” he confirmed. I started to walk away but he shouted: “Did you even know her name? Did you even care? Her name was Olivia. She was a person, Meredith. A person!”

Olivia. I thought of the little girl growing up in Midtown who had died so young, a nonmage who had died from a mage’s curse. I could feel no pity. I could feel no shame, no horror, not anymore. The hum reminded me. The red hum reminded me of my mission. The sword throbbed along my back and I walked to its beat, walking away from him as he hunched over in grief. He had been a good friend, the thought occurred to me. But I didn’t stop. I didn’t turn back. Not for a mage. 

His daughter died three years before he did. Whereas I thought I would be saddened to hear about his passing, I could not deny a small measure of relief. According to Alrik and his close friend Karras, Thrask had been plotting against me for years. I knew it. Whispering, keeping his distance. Silent in my presence. After Olivia’s death, he never spoke another word to me unrelated to the completion of his assigned duties. In the attempt to save Carver Hawke from being kidnapped, he fell to blood magic. The mage was slain by Marian Hawke. And the cycle began again.


	26. Stuck to Our Families

Carver Hawke returned with his face fallen and his armor bloody. His sister Marian did all the speaking for him. “Get me some lyrium, he’s been without for four days and I’m out,” she barked as soon as she got into the Gallows compound. I hated to see the templars following her orders, as if she was someone worth listening to. Someone worth being in a position of power. I wondered why they were so quick to jump to her orders when, lately, they seemed to hesitate at mine.

I approached. “What happened?”

“They were trying to get at me by kidnapping him. There were blood mages involved. Thrask is dead,” she said in a regretting tone. So she had befriended the traitor who dared to speak against me. They were two of a kind. It was a pity she already had a Chantry brother for a lover; she would have been a fine corruptor of my templars.

“Are the mages dead?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, then pushed Carver’s hair out of his eyes as he stumbled onto the healer’s table. “He’s not hurt, but he needs lyrium. He can barely even walk.”

“How do you do it?” he coughed at Marian. “You’re a mage – don’t you need it too?”

She didn’t answer. She only tipped his head back and uncorked the first vial someone gave to her and poured the entirety of it down his throat. He sputtered and gulped, sucking down the liquid like he was dehydrated nearly to death. Within a few moments, his face began pinking up and even with the stubble that didn’t belong on his face, he began to look more normal.

“It was the apostate Grace who did it,” Carver managed to say after taking several deep breaths. “She killed Thrask. He was just trying to get her to not use blood magic.”

“Did he use a Holy Smite?” I asked, although I already knew the answer. Thrask was weak. Thrask saw his daughter in every mage’s eyes.

“No, he didn’t. He was trying to reason with her, but you can’t reason with a pride abomination.”

“You can’t reason with any abomination,” I said, then looked over to Marian Hawke dabbing Carver’s forehead with a wet cloth. “You went for him,” I mused, not even realizing I was speaking aloud until she turned to look at me.

“Of course I did. He’s my only family. Like it or not, we’re stuck with each other,” she said and ruffled his hair. Gone was the scared mage cowering from the templar who could harm her. I could see what she saw quite plainly: Carver would never be able to harm his sister. He would be able to shout and scream and push her to the ground, but in a true battle, he would never be able to face her and win.


	27. The 71st Rose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story can also be read as an independent work, which I've posted separately.

Two weeks after my ordination as Knight-Commander, I had gone to the flower seller whose business I had visited once a year since the year I was ordained as a templar and began getting a salary. No matter how meager my earnings were, I always put some aside for seventy-one roses on the sixth of Justinian.

I walked through the alleyways slowly, making sure to keep a good hold on the flowers and not let any of them fall to the ground. Before long I stood before an open area facing a group of houses, children running through the road and shrieking as they played a game of mages and templars. The neighborhood seemed entirely normal, and the children playing at war could not have imagined the war that had taken place on their own doorsteps.

The only indicator that this neighborhood was not completely normal was a statue in the center of the open square with a rusted plaque at its base, the words almost unintelligible. Few who remained in the neighborhood these days knew what significance the words held, but one of those was a middle-aged woman who sneaked up on me almost completely unawares.

"You look different" was her simple greeting.

"I am different," I remembered saying.

The woman nodded at the all-too-recognizable golden circlet. "So you are the new Knight Commander, Ser Stannard?"

"Yes. I wish to express my condolences once again and reiterate that under my command, this will never happen again." I imagined the woman pondering, contemplating, figuring out her next move. If she thought my words were true, that would mean her own daughter would not have died in vain at the hands of Amelia Stannard. If her daughter's death could save innocent children, perhaps it would be worth it? But there was no way to tell until I spoke again. "I have put aside my family and my name. I was ordained Knight Commander Meredith by Her Grace the Grand Cleric. I give you my word, I will keep this city safe."

The woman opened her mouth, looking at me with a mixture of skepticism and distrust, her eyes finding the flowers in my hand. "Seventy-one again?"

"Seventy-one again," I echoed. In a hushed voice I added, "I know what she was, but she was also my sister."

The woman took a step back, gesturing towards the plaque. "I will try to keep my mother out of your way." A simple gesture of peace, a nod at the Knight-Commander who she might have felt threatened by, and the woman was on her way. I held the flowers in her hands, wondering if I was worthy, before closing my eyes.

I knelt before the plaque, its words worn away by time. It used to be bright and gleaming, but over the years the rains and storms and lightning had reduced its message to a few chicken-scratches on a metal plate. No one could read the words anymore, and as the years went by, people forgot this particular event and moved on to others. Sure, the casualties were catastrophic, but few people were still around who remembered the events of That Day.

Now that I was alone, it was my turn to atone. I held out the flowers and began placing them down, one by one.

For the secrets I did not tell. The table's corner set ablaze, food boiling in its dishes, dumping water on the wood until it buckled and collapsed to the ground. Fourteen flowers for the accidents.

For the earth torn apart. Lesser demons squelching out of the ground to join their master, the twisted and malformed Thing that used to be Amelia Stannard. The fear demon who stared out of my big sister’s eyes a moment after she told me to keep myself safe. Fourteen flowers for the souls scattered on the streets.

For the men flinging their arms in front of their homes, torn to bits as their loved ones ran for cover. Fourteen flowers for bravery turned to brokenness.

For the women screaming but holding their ground, shielding children with their bodies. Fourteen flowers for shrieks turned to silence.

For the children playing on the streets, realizing mages-and-templars is not a game. Fourteen flowers for sociability turned to sacrifice.

At last, I held just one rose, one red rose with bright thorns and maroon edges. One red rose.

"You!"

I swiveled my head around as quickly as I could, facing the old woman who was marching towards me with more determination and passion than most templars on their morning patrols. Most templars, not me. I owed it to Kirkwall to put in the extra effort, to work my body ragged if I could even try to save one life for the ones my stupidity had taken.

The woman started to yell again - "How dare you show your face here, Meredith Stannard!"

"Leave me in peace and I will depart in a moment." It was then that I turned to face the woman, showing my face and my new armor and my crown, showing my hands prickled with thorns.

It was then that the woman saw the seventy-first rose.

"You leave a rose for a murderer? The same one you leave for my granddaughter? For my husband?" She advanced towards me, shaking her fists. "You put that flower down, you'll regret it."

"Mother!" The younger woman advanced towards the two of us, holding out her hand. Her mother swatted it away. "You'll get punished. It's not worth it."

"Anyone who would punish someone for grieving is not worthy of wearing that armor." A fat fleck of spittle on the templar sword on my breastplate.

As the daughter dragged her mother away, she let out profanities and pawed at the ground, reaching down to drag her fingernails along the bricks on the ground. Her fingers grabbed onto a rock-sized piece of brick, rolling it between sweaty palms. She pursed her lips through her tears. She snarled, gritting her teeth. She threw the piece of brick in the air.

I saw nothing as she knelt to place my sister's rose. All I heard was a thump, and a rush of pain. And when I brought my fingers to touch the back of my head, I felt the sticky tang of blood.

My fingertips were stained red, a few sticky drops webbing between her outstretched fingers as I flexed them, wondering if I was about to lose my life then and there. And then I decided I would not. Whatever it took, I would get back to the barracks. If that monster who had called himself the viscount had not killed me - and not for lack of trying - then I would survive. I was too strong to go down from something like this.

But I felt dizzy, my head swimming as I blinked once, then twice, wishing I had taken her lyrium before departing the Gallows in the morning. Anticipating a short encounter with no trouble, I had saved it for later, which would no doubt aid in my recovery but only emphasized how pathetic I must have looked, staring at my bloody fingers. I fought blood mages almost daily. This should not alarm me.

"Knight Commander, are you all right?" the younger woman asked hesitantly, holding onto her mother, who was not putting up as much of a struggle. The mother did not utter a single word, simply looked aside and refused to meet my eyes.

"I... believe so," I said, shaking my head a bit to try to gain some clarity.

The younger woman hesitated again before speaking. "I will help you take my mother to the Gallows."

"What?" I snapped.

"She assaulted the Knight-Commander," the woman gave her a strange look. "Are you sure your mind is not affected?"

I stood for a while before responding. I watched the older woman squirm in her daughter's arms, glaring up at me with utter hatred. This was the price I had to pay to be a Stannard, the price my sister had exacted upon my family. The red rose was a toll of blood, a toll that I continued to pay for years until I had saved seventy lives. One for each life my sister had stolen before their time.

"Take her inside," I whispered, then repeated myself with a hopefully more authoritative tone of voice. "And keep her away from bricks in the future."

The younger woman looked incredulous, but did not challenge me. Instead she dragged her mother back to the home, and I faced her until she was back indoors and no longer a threat. A headache started to burrow into my brain, and I knew I had to get back to the Gallows so I could find a mage with a talent for healing. I began to walk out of the neighborhood... but not before giving the roses one last look, the seventy curled into each other in a pool of victims, and the one loner, the murderer, the mage. And it was for this that I fought.

I wove my way back through the marketplace with my hand on my head. The crowd parted before me and even the merchants seemed to quail from behind their stalls. No one met my eyes until I found a templar returning from patrol who stammered at me until he could find his words.

“Knight Commander!” He stood up taller when he saw me waiting on the side of the docks, looking aghast at the dripping blood. I was starting to feel woozy and light-headed, but I had to make it to the Circle. I was not going to faint in front of this newcomer like a seasick girl. It was not life-threatening, and I could handle it. “Are you… how can I help… Ser?”

“Just get the boat… to the Gallows. I’ll find a healer there.”

“One of the viscount’s men?” he asked as he reached out to help me onto the boat. I wobbled alarmingly but did not take his hand. I had to be strong. Always strong. I shook my head lightly enough to avoid exacerbating the wound. “Well, I hope the bastard got what he deserved,” he said as he began to steer the boat.

I nodded slightly, but knew that the situation was quite the contrary. The price was set too high – I could not pay the price – so I knew that the woman would never get what she truly deserved – justice for the deaths of her loved ones.

When the boat reached the Gallows, I felt my head swim and rock with nonexistent waves as I stepped out of the boat with trembling feet. My armor felt heavy all of a sudden, a feeling I recognized as blood loss. I was not typically affected in this way, but a sharp piece of brick to the head often had side effects such as these. This did not even feel like a wound in a fight with a mage, which spurred me further and called in song to the blue lyrium coursing through my blood. No, this was something I had not felt before - a weakness in my blood and bones, an inherent problem with the human form.

I staggered towards my office, the templar from the boat standing respectfully a few inches behind me at all times. He thought I was weak... and I almost didn't have the energy to contradict him. Luckily, it was not much farther to reach the place where a few healing mages were kept to heal templars' wounds. I blinked heavily a few times, realizing that my feet were shuffling in a rather undignified manner. No matter - I would be take care of soon, and I could not afford to show any weakness around my men - not at this time... I lunged forward and through the doorway.

"Knight-Commander!" I heard a voice snap to attention, and then a warm gust of magic tickling the back of my head. I focused on the tingling sensation to try to keep myself from falling. I swayed alarmingly before I found myself sitting down, my hand removed from the affected area and the tickling coming back in force. "Take this," the mage urged, "it should help." I was in no position to refuse, but I appreciated the tingle of lyrium sliding down her throat, along with a return to a greater sense of wakefulness.

It turned out I was not the only templar in the clinic - a large man who resembled a bear was getting something oozing on his arm patched up, and when he saw I was more awake, he strode over to me, alarming the mage trying to heal him. "The name of the one who did this," he growled.

It would have been so easy. I knew the name, knew exactly where the widow lived with her daughter and the memories of her husband and granddaughter. With one word I could have the woman strung up much as in the logo of the Hanged Man, with a gesture I could have half a dozen templars running through that neighborhood, out for blood. Just one word could get it all started. "I am fine, templar."

"Someone did this to you - a mage? Are you affected by blood magic?" He sent out a small cleanse in my area, annoying the mage still tending to my head.

"This person is not a mage, I've checked," I asserted, relishing the feeling of the tickle of healing slowing down the trickle of blood. "At ease, templar. I will be fine." And I knew as well as he did that he would have no choice but to answer, to heed my wishes. The old woman would live her miserable life to see the next day - perhaps even a day of renewal - and true to her word, I would be fine.

I was always fine - fine after my family died, fine after my fellows died just this past week, always doing well and fine and not needing any kind of help beyond the lyrium. Now was not the time to acknowledge that there were times - rare, but they did occur - when I was not fine. When I was simply Meredith Stannard, trying to mourn for my murderer of a sister along with all the victims for whom I felt personally responsible. Now that I was Knight Commander, I would curb the influence of magic. Never again would someone feel the pain of losing their family due to magic. This, I knew - and I knew it would be my philosophy until her dying day.

Years after the widow died and her daughter was buried next to her, a passerby asked me what I was doing, why I was placing what seemed like a large number of roses on a faded old plaque that was too old and rusted to read. I didn’t answer what I was thinking:

A decade of sisterhood celebrated by a wilting flower and a brick to the back of the head.


	28. In Sickness and Health

I woke up in my bed with the covers pulled up to my chin. A thick winter blanket in the summer. Covered in sweat. It was difficult to open my eyes. Orsino was sitting in a chair across from the bed, fussing with different potions.

“She’s awake,” he called out.

“Thank the Maker,” said a voice I didn’t recognize. “I’ll alert the Grand Cleric.”

“Thank you,” Orsino said, then turned to me. “You’ve been out five days. Lyrium poisoning. A few other templars got sick, but no one nearly as bad as you.”

It struck me that my body was shaking. I needed the lyrium not the blue the red the red. My breath came quickly and through my nose but my body felt too leaden to move. I was too weak. “I need it,” I croaked.

Orsino approached me. He would try to distract me with talking. I knew him too well. But I couldn’t focus. I was just thinking about the red, how I needed its glow, how just one moment one instant one second with it could make me leap out of bed, ready for battle.

“I tried to do everything you asked, but you kept asking for someone I don’t know. I checked the barracks and even the Circle tower, but I couldn’t find an Amelia anywhere.”

“What did I want with her?” I croaked.

“For the first three days, you were just saying her name. On the fourth day you were silent. And on the fifth…” He suddenly looked uncomfortable, not meeting me in the eye. “You asked me to kill her.”

“Bring me my sword,” I managed to say.

“You’ll hurt yourself. You’re not well enough yet,” he tried to say.

“Bring it to me,” I said in the most forceful voice I could muster.

“Fetch her sword,” he called out the door. A few minutes later, he deposited the sword on the bed. I held it close to me, feeling its heartbeat along its veins, shaking and shaking as it spread through my body.

Strong again, I had no doubt I could kill the mage with it. Sister or not.


	29. A Small Rebellion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of non-con sexual encounters in this chapter.

The door to my office swung open and I noticed Orsino’s was open as well. He stood in the doorway, irate, fuming, seething with anger as he motioned for a mage in the hall to follow him through the door.

“Ser Alrik has crossed the line. Again,” he spat, then turned with a kinder eye to beckon the mage in the hall to come in through the doors. It was Elsa, my assistant, who I hadn’t seen since that morning. I had wondered why she was late – after all, the Tranquil never had anywhere to be, anything to do, or anyone to meet unless they were commanded to do so – but here she was, looking perfect and pristine as usual except for some tangles in her usually-straight hair.

“It is polite to knock,” Elsa said. Orsino looked like he was about to vomit.

“I’ve really tried to overlook this, to let Alrik have another chance, but he’s abusing the Tranquil now. This is not all right, Meredith, surely even you can see this!”

“Even me, Orsino?”

“Even you who fails to see that most, if not all, of your templars are abusive and power-hungry and hurt my mages every day!”

Elsa’s eyes followed Orsino and I as we talked. She blinked slowly and evenly, not letting out a single word to defend herself or explain why she was there. She simply stood still.

“Tell me what happened or get out of my office, Orsino. I will not listen to your lies.”

“It’s not a lie,” he snapped. “I myself walked in on Alrik raping Elsa this morning and just because she’s Tranquil doesn’t mean she’s fodder for your templars to plow. Call him off or I can’t guarantee he won’t meet his Maker very, very soon.”

“Is that a threat?” I said.

“That’s all you can ask? I told you your own assistant was getting raped – probably not even for the first time – and all you can ask is if I’m threatening you? Paranoid bitch.”

“Elsa,” I said in an exaggerated voice, trying to draw her attention and curious gaze away from Orsino’s words, “will you tell me what happened? Did you see Ser Alrik this morning?”

“He was protecting me from the demons,” she said in her usual monotone voice.

“Disgusting,” Orsino muttered, then started swearing under his breath.

“Elsa, look at me,” I said. “What did Ser Alrik do?”

“He interlocked the parts of our bodies that are usually kept under robes,” she said calmly. “Orsino came in and Ser Alrik left.” Was it my imagination, or was there a small tremor in her voice when she said his name?

“He left the Gallows. Just waltzed away. He had a mage in his company, an apprentice named Ella. She’s set to take her Harrowing later this month and if he touches her, if he destroys her…” Orsino fumed.

“I’ll see what I can do when he returns,” I said.

“You’ll see what you can do? You’ve got the most power in this city. You’ve basically been the viscount and the Knight-Commander for the past three years and you’ve got Elthina under your fingertips and you’re just going to let him get away with it? Again?”

“He was punished the last time he was accused,” I retorted.

“‘He was punished,’” he mimicked. “He was given a slap on the wrist when you had a tearful confession from a non-Tranquil mage and at least half a dozen witnesses!”

I thought back to the mage who had come to me earlier, her clothes torn, her eyes wet with tears. The exact opposite of Elsa’s calm, Tranquil demeanor. She had told a detailed story, wove her words carefully, described every action both she and Alrik took. She had brought friends, leaned on them, relied on their words and their presence in my office. She had insisted to speak while Alrik was away and she had demanded to be moved to another Circle after taking the tansy to expel the potential child.

His punishment had been a week without lyrium. He had stopped eating, started lagging behind in training, failed a mission. He was looked upon in a disgusted way by his fellow templars and by the time the week was over, he assured me that he had learned his lesson, that he needed the lyrium again. I took pity on him – even though he was quite the bully, he was a strong presence bolstering the templar ranks and in this time of chaos and turmoil, I needed him.

And, only now that the lyrium was so close to seeping into my bones did I understand the severity of Alrik’s punishment. How a week without lyrium must have felt like torture, a punishment that matched the despicable crime. I scarcely felt normal anymore without the sword on my back or in my hand.

“Figures,” Orsino grumbled. “Come on, Elsa. I’ll help you. Meredith won’t,” he said in a disgusted tone and held Elsa’s hand.

“You have put your hand in mine,” she said, and opened her mouth again. Orsino made a disgusted noise and almost dragged her out of the room, not bothering to shut the door as he went on a rant in his office, accusing me of being just as evil as Alrik.

“I’ll punish him when he gets back,” I shouted across the hall. He looked at me and shook his head and shut the door.

For a brief moment I thought of Elsa as she had been before she was turned Tranquil. A rebel, a troublemaker who never considered the consequences of her actions until she found herself sitting in the chair with two templars holding down her arms and me advancing on her with the brand sizzling in my hand. The way she had squirmed, tried to get away, until her arms were covered with bruises. The way she tried to spit in my face when I got close enough, the final moment of her true life when she crossed her eyes to watch the movement of the sunburst and let out a piercing scream.

A moment later, she had asked, “Is there a reason for my placement in this chair?” No rebellion. She was no longer capable of it. All she could do was serve. Alrik had figured this out as easily as he had bruised her arms when he helped to hold her down. My thoughts returned to him, to the way his strength was a weakness as well. Another week without lyrium would do him good, even if Elsa would have no way to know or care why he was being punished or why he would most likely go after her and threaten her life.

Neither Alrik nor Ella returned to the Gallows that night, nor ever again. Rumors spread through the neighborhood, but they all had one person in common. Marian Hawke. She had seen fit to deal with my templar on my business and after neutralizing what the rumors said she claimed to be an insane man, she allowed Ella to flee. Took another apostate under her wing. Slowly but surely, she was forming an apostate army that could not be allowed to exist in Kirkwall. Becoming more and more of a threat that it was becoming harder and harder to ignore.


	30. The Stronger Sister

When people came to know about my sister, after their simpering apologies or pitied responses, they all wanted to know what sort of demon plagued her. They all wanted to know the tale of how the Knight-Commander and his valiant men took down a monster who had slain families with small children. They cared little for who she was before, nor the fact that she used to be a person.

No one cared what she looked like, that her hair was darker than mine and I always thought she was more beautiful. She was a thinker, not a talker. Her facial expression showed volumes about what she was thinking about. Her drawings and sketches could have gotten her famous one day, if not for the day when she accidentally set the kitchen table on fire.

She used to wake me up by knocking on my door and singing her hellos before going down the stairs. She used to sit on the left side of the table with me and she faced Father when I faced Mother. She had bright blue eyes, bright like the lyrium neither of us had heard of. She was a child – a child – and her life and enthusiasm bubbled over into everything she did, everyone she met, everything she said.

That would be the positive reminiscence, the rose-colored glasses showing me only the positive sides. But I remembered all too well that the fear demon had been there for a while, in her head, even before she turned into an abomination. Even then, her happiness was the kind of laughter that always ends in tears.

She did things in twos and hid from the dark. She got sucked into the horrible loop of casting accidental magic, then shying away from it in fear, then reacting in panic and when she lost control, more magic would appear again. She stopped eating, stopped sleeping. For five years, she trembled through the cycle of living and dying. The two became so blended that if not for the way her voice still sounded sweet when she spoke to me, it would have been easy to think she was dead inside.

The fear demon had lived there for a very long time. And she fought against it. When I thought about her battle, it wasn’t even like Marian Hawke fighting against the huge Arishok. It was like Hawke fighting against the Arishok with one hand while the other turned her magic against her, burned off her hair and her clothes, and Amelia stood naked before her enemy, her body and mind broken.

Mages are not supposed to break. If the templars had found Amelia, they likely would have killed her on sight if only for the danger she posed in her accidental magic. They would have considered her weak for the way she lived and the way she died.

Mages are weak if they succumb. If they let demons in and allow themselves to be helpless vehicles for murder, staring out their own eyes as they tore everyone they loved apart. They were seen as weak for giving into the temptation, but for the ones like Amelia, for the ones who were tortured during the night and day was their only rest, who wasted away in front of their loved ones’ eyes without anyone being able to help.

Amelia was the strongest mage I ever knew.

But with the city falling apart at the seams, there was no way to honor that strength. No way to bring apostates to the Circle and train them, reassure them, help them control their own minds. There was nothing for me to do and as I cut down apostates one by one, as I fought against mages for the greater good, I couldn’t help but think that some could be redeemed. But I didn’t have enough time to figure out which.

I thought of my sister as I wrote out my request on a piece of parchment and sealed it in a thick envelope. When the trade-boats went out, I gave the letter to a scared-looking captain who put it into the satchel of Grand Cleric Elthina’s business for the Divine. I watched the boat sail out of the harbor, between the giant statues of slaves that Orsino wielded against me as what he believed to be a potent metaphor. The slaves stood still, looking out into the sky as the ship departed with my letter, my plea. My way of showing the mages I cared about them, that I would not leave them to a lifetime of pain and suffering. My way of showing that being a templar meant to try, but at some point, whether it was due to the incessant humming of lyrium in our veins or the stories of loved ones burning in our minds, we had to give up.


	31. My Burden Is My Strength

When I walked through the streets these days, people didn’t talk. No one called out to say hello to a neighbor, no one stuck their heads out their windows to see the templar procession. People cowered. They were mages or mage-harborers, all of them, and they knew that there was nothing they could do to explain their crimes if they were caught. Men, women, and children went about their duties without stopping to say hello. The city felt like it was under a shroud, under a deep blanket muffling all the sounds.

And yet, that made it all the easier to find the mages. The ones who had to dare to skitter out of their hiding places were more obvious in a place where everyone crept. When everyone went slow, the quick were noticed more. When everyone simply went about their business, the unusual became easier to find. The mages who dared to escape, who dared to live outside the Circle, were quickly and easily found by my blade or the blades of my fellows.

Beggars started to fill the streets. I doubted them. The harbor was open, so how could anyone be poor like that unless they were wasting their resources on alcohol or hiding people in their homes and bribing the templars away?

And yet, one day, I saw him sitting on the ground, his grimy hands cupped as someone dropped a copper into his open palms. “Thank you,” he grunted, and his voice sounded oddly familiar. As I walked by him on my way towards the market, I saw him eyeing me with malice.

“Your name, beggar,” I said.

“Raleigh Samson, ser,” he said in a sarcastic tone. It almost sounded like I was talking to a male version of Marian Hawke.

“Samson,” I confirmed. I hadn’t recognized him without his armor, with a giant scraggly beard dotted with flecks of spittle and his eyes empty, his ribs poking out of what remained of his shirt and his feet bare upon the cobblestones.

“Meredith,” he answered.

“Knight-Commander Meredith,” I said back. He rolled his eyes and looked away from me. I leaned over so I would be able to see his face, be able to see what he was really up to. And when I looked into his eyes, I was completely shocked by what I saw. The whites of his eyes were covered with popping red veins and his tongue swept over his lips repeatedly for no reason. He looked crazed, horrified, completely mad. It was horrifying to look into his eyes.

“I need it,” he croaked. “I need it and you took it away… you stole it…” he muttered under his breath, then started crawling in the opposite direction. He was not even strong enough to stand – but he was crawling, inch by inch, away from me.

And then he jumped up when I turned around. He reached out towards me, grabbing, grasping onto the blade of my sword. His hands were cut but he didn’t stop trying, didn’t stop reaching and clambering and trying to climb up my back. I shook my armor and he fell to the ground, and I kept walking faster. No reason to humor a madman, after all.

It took me until I got back to the Gallows and took my sword out of its sheath on my back that I realized it had been what he was going for. Had he wanted to kill himself? Weapons were not so scarce, after all; even a beggar could usually scrounge up a knife. And then the sword itself answered me. It hummed and buzzed with energy, a hum I came to realize I had been hearing for so long that it felt like something my own mind was doing, not something I was hearing from something else. Its song was potent, and perhaps to the crazed lyrium addict, it had seemed to offer a solution.

It wasn’t a solution for him. It was my own burden. Something I had taken upon myself to make my body stronger and my mind keener, my ears unable to hear distractions and my body unable to stop going. There was no question that it was changing me, shaping me into a better person, a better leader, a better Knight-Commander. It mattered not that Samson’s arms were scrabbling towards the sword, reaching out for a redemption that was not his to get. It was mine alone. I would be the one to make this sacrifice for the good of Kirkwall.


	32. A Faith Long Dead

“The mage will be arriving here in a few moments along with the First Enchanter. After the ceremony ends, you will be responsible for holding your sword over the mage’s throat. If she is possessed, you will be the first responsible to kill her. Do you accept this responsibility?”

“I accept,” I said, looking around to ground myself in the memory, in the moment. It was the first time, my first Harrowing. Not the first success – that came later, the one following this. I could see the memory in my eyelids but knew I wouldn’t be able to succeed, that nothing I said or did would change the mage from the path she was about to go on.

“Knight-Commander,” the First Enchanter said politely, showing in the small elven mage brushing her hair with her fingers and giving me a nervous smile. A look that her face would never give again, I knew, even though the memory-me still had faith. Still trusted her. Harrowed mages had far more privileges, after all – perhaps this could be all the motivation she would need to earn them. She peeked into the room that was empty save for a long table, a large stone basin, and torches set around the room flashing brilliantly. I could see splatters of blood along the walls, although it seemed she couldn’t; her smile never wavered.

“First Enchanter. I assume everything went well?” Guylian said, then gave the mage a small smile. “And you, Jenara? Are you ready?”

“I think so, ser,” she said shyly as she stepped behind the First Enchanter, hiding behind his aging form. Hiding not from the one who would slay her but from the one she feared most. I was just the girl, after all. Not ordained. Just a girl who couldn’t do anything effectual with the big sword I was lugging around.

“Then let us begin,” Guylian said before launching into his speech. Over the years, I had adopted it, reframed it, made it my own. The speech was as much mine now as it was his, but the memory-me simply listened. “As the Chant of Light says, magic is to serve man, not to rule over him. Thus far in your studies, you have been discouraged from interacting with the Fade in any other way than learning how to cast your magic. Tonight, you will be sent into the Fade with nothing and you will face a demon. Refuse its offer, and you will have won your place among the enchanters of the Kirkwall Circle of Magi. Do you understand?”

“A demon?” she squeaked. I wondered what her reaction had been when it had approached her in the Fade. When it had spoken to her in sweet, honeyed words, convincing her to let it have a foothold into the world of mortals. What had it had to argue, what evidence had it had to present? Or was it simpler than I thought? Did it only have to speak her name to woo her away from all that is good?

“We’ve all done it, Jenara. Me as well,” the First Enchanter said supportively as he stroked his beard. I wondered about the previous First Enchanter’s Harrowing. About Orsino’s. Both remarkably fast – Harrowing times were generally an indication of how powerful a mage was, either in force or conviction. I wondered whether Orsino passed on force or conviction, whether he had cared to listen or simply lit the demon’s world on fire, simply wrecked everything he did like he did continuously in the mortal world.

“What if I – what if it tries to hurt me?”

Knight-Commander Guylian took a step closer to the quaking mage. In the firelight, she looked younger than her years, like a child being thrown into the abyss. “If you are uncomfortable to do this task, there is another option.” She wouldn’t take the option, even though it was what was best for her. And I was always the monster, the one telling mages when they couldn’t do it even if they thought they could. I was the monster for getting between murderers and victims.

“I will do it,” she said. “I don’t want to be Tranquil. I want to be alive,” she said. She would be neither, I knew this, but the memory-me kept her sword steady.

“Very well. It is also my duty to inform you that Meredith Stannard,” I met the mage’s eyes, “will be performing the sacred duty of holding the sword. If you linger too long in the Fade or allow a demon to possess you, it is her sword that will take your life. Remember that,” he said sternly, then gestured for her to walk through the door.

I followed, and as the Knight-Commander read some sections from the Chant and the First Enchanter whispered sweet words of encouragement in the girl’s ear, I prepared my sword. I knew I would need it then, even as the girl grinned at the First Enchanter and promised she’d be good. I knew it when she walked over to the vial of lyrium and dipped her hand in, touching the substance. I knew which breath she took would be her last with a sane mind, and yet, the memory-me refused to act. Knew and refused to act.

Knowing and refusing to act, in my book, is the same as murder.

The memory-me held her sword steadily over the mage’s throat. Steady, not a single movement, no hesitation, I would like to say – but no, she was scared, the sword jumped a bit when she took breaths, when she looked down at the mage. I wished I could stop her then, I wished I could push the sword down and take the mage’s life. But no. She waited until the mage was possessed, until there was no chance. She waited.

Because the memory-me had faith.

She had faith that the mage would wake up, eyes brown and glittering with something between tears and happiness. She would sit up slowly, complain that her head hurt, brush the hair that had fallen out of the thong from her eyes. The First Enchanter would beam at her, so proud, call her Enchanter Jenara and lead her to a fluffy bed made up with the newest sheets crafted by the Formari. She would lay in the sheets made by the Tranquil and know that she would never be one of them, and rest secure in the fact that she was safe.

But she would never be safe. Mages never were. They got stronger, but so did their curse, and the more a mage increased their power, the more demons wanted to find a foothold in their bodies and pry their souls out and wreak havoc with the hands that used to build things for good. The memory-me didn’t know this. It was why she – I – had hesitated when the mage first opened her red eyes. After everything that had happened, I hadn’t wanted to believe that a mage would willingly go into a demon’s arms. And, one by one, they proved me wrong. And, one by one, I learned to hold the sword steadier. Lower it at the slightest sign. Let a mage open their eyes with the sword at their neck and know that, even if they passed, they would be living with this sword at their neck for the rest of their life. They would never be free of their curse. And I would never be free from protecting them from it.


	33. Writing on the Wall

The graffiti, painted in blood, on the side of the Gallows. Painted with the blood of the mages by their rebel supporters.  
  
“Templars, attend!” Four men came running over, swords drawn, holding their shields close to their bodies.  
  
They stood still for too long once they arrived. “Get that filth off the walls!”  
  
They stood still and silent, looking from me to the wall back to me again. Two of them looked at each other, silently daring each other to speak. “Erm… what filth?” the first one asked.  
  
“What do you mean? The words – the words on the wall!” They blared at me. Bright and red and positively dripping with hatred and venom. How could the templars not see it?  
  
They looked back and forth again, almost as if trying to find someone who could relieve them of their duties. As if they didn’t want to look at the wall, at the red writing swimming in my vision as my eyes filled with tears. I couldn’t let anyone see. Especially my men. Tears were for women – they would never respect me if I cried.  
  
“Get Orsino.” It was difficult to watch them scamper off like mice, running away from me, their boots clattering. I tried to convince myself that they weren’t trying to leave me. They were trying to obey. They were guilty at how they didn’t clean the wall, so they ran to fetch Orsino. Perhaps they felt like the task of cleaning the wall was beneath a templar, perhaps they thought it would be more suited to a mage. Either way, they left.  
  
Orsino came running. I heard his robes sliding along the ground as he approached. “What was so important that you needed to drag me from my work? The work I’m doing for you, by the way?” he sneered.  
  
I stared at the wall.  
  
“So you summoned me – these templars were so scared they were tripping over themselves to find me – and now you won’t even speak to me?”  
  
I was looking at the words. Watching them. For a moment, they blinked out of sight. I blinked again and they were there, in a haze of red hatred.  
  
“Get rid of it,” I said. “Clean it. Get it out of here.”  
  
“What? You’re just going to talk crazy at me now? Yeah, it’s been hours since you’ve gone off the rails at me. You’re late.”  
  
“The blood. Get rid of it, Orsino. Get it out of my sight.”  
  
“And now you’re accusing me of blood magic. Great. Just what I needed,” he said, and turned to walk away.  
  
“Not you,” I said. “The writing on the wall.” I said. He didn’t respond. I saw him walking away out of the corner of my eye. Then I turned to face the words again. I got a bucket and sponge and walked back, finding the words still there. I scrubbed and scrubbed. First half of the sentence was gone. I could still see the words even as the sun was setting. Even as I heard another person coming my way. Even as I recognized the person as Orsino.  
  
Orsino turned and looked at my face. Saw the wet evidence I couldn’t deny. “Meredith?” he asked softly. “What’s on the wall?”  
  
“Words,” I said slowly. “Words in blood.”  
  
“What do they say?” he asked softly.  
  
I didn’t answer.  
  
“Take my hand, Meredith. Take it and show me the words. Show me,” he said in a very strange voice, almost as if I was an imbecile incapable of reading. I leaned forward without his hand and touched the wall, prepared to touch the viscous blood, the deep red. Prepared to get my hand dirty. But there was nothing. Nothing but solid wall, even as my eyes told me my hand was touching the blood, touching the red red words and getting stuck in it.  
  
_Maybe there would be no war if mommy would have hugged her more_  
  
I was just scrubbing away “if.”  
  
I wanted to talk to the words on the wall. I wanted to scream at them even as Orsino shook his head and left. I wanted to show whoever wrote the words that my mother could not have prevented a war. She caused it, she caused it all, by loving her daughters. Both of us. Equally. Holding me in her arms at night, the sweet younger daughter, breathing in the scent of my hair as she rocked me to sleep. Holding Amelia, an arm under her chest, pushing back on her ribs as she panicked. The love of not touching, of bringing her food and not complaining when the food rotted and she had to take it away.  
  
I had a response.  
  
_Maybe ‘twould be for the best if mommy would have loved her less_  
  
But when I looked at the words again, they had disappeared.


	34. The Harrowing of Amelia Stannard

“The mage will be arriving here in a few moments along with the First Enchanter. After the ceremony ends, you will be responsible for holding your sword over the mage’s throat. If she is possessed, you will be the first responsible to kill her. Do you accept this responsibility?”

“I accept,” I said, the words ringing in my ears. Repeating. I accept, I accept. 

“Knight-Commander,” the First Enchanter said politely. I looked aside. I was alone. In my Knight-Commander armor. Guylian was gone. I looked back at the First Enchanter. He was Orsino, his hair long and flowing, his fingers long and lithe and beckoning, bending at the knuckle.

Two templars walked in. Alrik and Aaron. Dragging the mage by her long dark hair. Tears poured out of her eyes. Her fingers scrabbled on the floor, looking for a way to stand. Alrik dropped her head and it slammed to the floor. 

Orsino had no reaction. None at all. And no one paid any mind to the loud gulps of air the mage took, her chest heaving, her breath coming in unsteady, harsh jolts. Orsino didn’t even kneel down as he spoke to her. “And you, Amelia? Are you ready?”

Shrieks. Abject shrieks.

“Then let us begin,” Orsino said before launching into the speech I had heard dozens of times before. “As the Chant of Light says, magic is to serve man, not to rule over him.”

“NO!” she screamed.

“Thus far in your studies, you have been discouraged from interacting with the Fade in any other way than learning how to cast your magic.”

“No, no, please, NO!” she dragged her hands along the floor. Her nails squeaked on the tiles.

“Tonight, you will be sent into the Fade with nothing and you will face a demon.”

“Oh Maker, no! Maker! Please! No!”

Orsino’s voice, calm as the tolling bell in the distance. One word, the next, another. “Refuse its offer, and you will have won your place among the enchanters of the Kirkwall Circle of Magi. Do you understand?”

She was crying too hard to speak. Screaming and rolling on the ground, her filthy robes torn. Magic sparked at her fingers. A soft murmur came out of her throat, but it was too hard to hear. I willed my knees to bend down, to listen to her, but the armor wouldn’t bend. It wouldn’t move. No matter how I tried to bend over, it stayed upright, ramrod-straight.

I waited for him to offer Tranquility. Put her out of her misery but let her stay alive. It was part of the script. It had to come. I would hold my tongue and I would wait. “Very well. It is also my duty to inform you that Meredith Stannard will be performing the sacred duty of holding the sword. If you linger too long in the Fade or allow a demon to possess you, it is her sword that will take your life. Remember that,” he said sternly, then gestured for her to walk through the door.

Amelia lay on the ground, shuddering. “Can she not be made Tranquil?” I found myself asking.

“I tried to warn you,” Alrik said. “I tried to tell you but you didn’t listen.” He kicked Amelia into the room. She lacked the strength to lash out and curled into herself on the floor. “You insisted. This is your doing,” he said as he tugged on her arm, lifting her up.

I could see the blotchiness of her face, the way the wetness and redness blended. She barely looked human anymore. She slouched over and Aaron took her hand, her sweet tender little hand that only now I could see was holding her raggedy stuffed nug, and dunked it into the pool of lyrium.

I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. I didn’t wait for the demon to open her eyes. I just plunged the sword down, watched as the blood pumped out of her throat until she was still. She looked so peaceful, she could have been asleep. But she would never, never wake up, not in this world or any other.

My eyes snapped open.

I lay in bed, rocking back and forth, the sword on my lap. I cared not for the cuts or the bleeding. I just watched the veins pulse, the sword that was very much alive and helping me helping me and helping keep my city protected. I took in deep breaths, choking on air, staring out the window even though there was no light. Chanting to myself, softly, the only words I still believed, the only thing that kept me alive after watching her die again and again and AGAIN her blood on my hands her crime on my soul even after all these years

Blessed are those who stand between the corrupt and wicked and do not falter. Blessed are those. Stand. Between corrupt and. Wicked. Blessed are those who stAnd between the c0rrupt and wicked and do not fALTER


	35. The Brightest Burn

Orsino was challenging me again. But I would have the tower searched. I would yank my city out from the clutches of the blood mages. I would not rest until my mission was done. And yet he challenged me, he stood in front of the Chantry and advanced on me, and I stood my ground. I would not yield even an inch to his corruption.

She appeared. Hawke, with that smirk on her face and holding onto her staff. Her robes were for males in the Circle, lovingly stitched by a deceased family. Clutching onto her father’s staff. Two apostates stood beside her, the elf and the Grey Warden who was only kept safe by international laws and a foolish bargain I had made years ago. My blood rankled at the sight of the three of them, standing before me brazenly. Challenging me. Just like her lover, whose crime of loving a mage was no less severe than theirs.

It was just like the other time, but without the Grand Cleric stepping into my fight, my victory. Neither of them would step between me and what I needed to do for this city again. I had approval for the order that would take the mages out of Kirkwall, out of the world forever. Hawke and Orsino were simply obstacles on my path. Obstacles that could and would be easily broken. I would debate no longer.

Orsino called the one point that still rang true, reaching desperately for Hawke to aid him. When he faced me, his eyes were filled with malice. “You would cast us all as villains, but it is not so!” The pretty, educated language even with the prelude to death in the air so strong that I could hear it even through the red pounding in my ears.

A flicker, a brief image of my sister rose to my mind. The song broke for an instant, ending on a high-pitched wail. “It breaks my heart to do it, but we must be vigilant.” Vigilant. It snapped me back to attention. To the humming. To what I must do. I must search the tower. There was no other way.

But then the apostate stepped up. The Anders man. The one who had escaped Circles so many times it defied imagination, the one who was tortured and broken by templars but sought sanctuary with the Grey Wardens. He was trying to fight for his cause. I watched him berate me, and then Orsino for listening to me. I could not believe he thought Orsino listened to me. A great rumble fell through my feet and I watched his staff. It was not moving. His hands were not moving.

But the Chantry was. A great red spire of light burst out of the archaic building, illuminating the city for one moment in a great fire that was not fire and, just a light and a flash as bricks flew through the air in a spiral, scraping and keening and wailing as they were ripped from their foundations, floating towards the eye of the storm in the sky. And with a flash so bright my eyes could not see anything, the Chantry exploded.

I staggered back, one step, two. Dust filled my nostrils as fire rained down around the city. Orsino had the same look on his face that I could feel on mine – abject horror. I could hear the Anders man say what he had done. Hawke, reeling in shock. I tried to steady myself. This was my city MY CITY and I was going to protect it and the one who did this would DIE and Elthina would be avenged.

It was Hawke’s lover who broke my thoughts. The desecrated Chantry brother who had soiled himself by loving a mage. He fell to his knees and wept for Elthina, and then he prayed the Chant. The Chant – what could the Chant do against such hatred, against such pain? My heart hurt, pulsed out of control as visions of Elthina swam to my head. Contradictory Elthina who helped Orsino and I both. Elthina who I knew my whole life, who poured the consecrated oil on my head, steadfast Elthina who refused to leave even when the tension in the city was a spark about to ignite. The Chant would not save her. Her body was torn apart, floating through the city, igniting fires that could not be put out.

“The Grand Cleric has been slain by magic, the Chantry destroyed.” I could hear my voice calm too calm but steady, steady as the pulse in the red-red sword beating along my spine. I thought of the letter I sent to the Divine and the reply that would surely arrive soon. “As Knight-Commander of Kirkwall, I hereby invoke the Right of Annulment. Every mage in the Circle is to be executed – immediately.” 

And she challenged me. I scarcely cared what her companions said. I kept both her and the murderer was in my sight at all times. She slew the murderer with mercy and he submitted to her. Mercy, something Elthina and the squadron of templars and all the Chantry sisters and the orphans – the orphans – would never get – “Stand with them and you share their fate.” I could not humor her anymore. Kirkwall could not afford to humor her anymore.

“I can live with that.” A challenge – to me – she would not be living anymore. That challenging heart would cease to beat and the city MY CITY would be made safe again.

The Anders man had knelt and faced away. He did not even try to resist. And Marian Hawke took the healer’s blade he gave her and dug it into his neck. I could see her face, a mixture of disgust and satiety. I wondered, for a moment, if she was going to give up the fight and help me gain control of the city. If she was going to prove that not all mages were untrustworthy. But she stood by them, the Circle mages who had done nothing but soil the city they lived in. She stood by them, and in doing so pitted herself against me. We would fight, and it would be a fight to remember.

We went to the Gallows both of us, Marian and I, commanding our own armies. The fighting spread into the streets. I stopped caring which of my templars died as long as they took mages down with them. I was stone. I was ice on the boat heading back to the Gallows.

“The Grand Cleric is dead,” I said again. “We fight for her.” I rallied my troops and watched Marian with hers, Orsino shepherding his flock of apostates and heretics and blood mages into a hallway by the staircase. I sent my men in to fight and was not surprised when no one came back. I watched the mages die and I watched my men die with no reaction at all. Almost as if none of them were human after all.

The others stayed outside. I collected the remaining templars, everyone I could find. They speared the mages in their protection, their erstwhile lovers and friends, the ones they helped and fed and raped and tortured. The bloodied survivors came to join me, their swords slick with mage blood. I told them to clear away the poison. Clean away the tainted blood that drew the demons in.

“We surrender!” My fists clenched as I saw two people running down the steps, tripping over their robes and their feet and finally collapsing at mine. “Please, we surrender! Don’t harm us!” Two of the enchanters. Two I had known for a long time. Covered in blood. Not their own, for I saw no swirling magic cloud around them. “It’s Orsino – ” they gasped. “Orsino – I’ve never seen anything like it – ”

They told of a large grey demon growing body parts out of others. “A harvester,” I said. A foreteller of times of doom and darkness. A demon so rare that it took years of blood magic to be able to summon one. Only an unbelievably talented and depraved mage could do it. Orsino had been betraying me for years, I could see as the behemoth picked up the body of a mage and reanimated it, snarling and snapping like a dog.

“My sister! Where is my sister!” Ser Carver yelled at the two enchanters on the ground.

“In there – she told us to get out – save every living Circle mage – get out of there and come here and get help,” the female enchanter gasped.

“Marian!” Carver called, yelled and a hand on his shoulder from Cullen stopped him from trying to do anything. Her voice echoed around the compound. I could hear her yell out in pain, and for just one moment it seemed like my problem would go away so easily, that she would just die and leave MY CITY alone. There was a great shout, barked orders, the tactician demonstrating her skill, ordering her troops to battle. The troops that followed her, on their way to oppose me. A great shout – 

The quiet was deafening. “Where is she? Where is my sister?” Carver asked. I too looked for her, but I did not know the answer. The answer no one could TELL ME WHERE MY SISTER IS, the Maker, the Void, the Maker, the Void, headless body buried in a nameless ditch in the city outskirts because we don’t bury murderers here.

The double doors opened and Marian Hawke appeared on the top of the steps. She limped on her way down. Drank a lyrium potion and tossed it. The glass shattered on the steps. She walked down, flanked by her lover, by two of her nameless companions. My command went out. I would have her dead and at my feet, and then I would save the others.

But then there was Cullen, the traitor. Cullen tried to relieve me of my command. My command, won in war, won upon the gallows of my mentor and my friend, on the blood of the two men I looked up to with fondness. I shouted at him. Threatened him. And pulled out my sword.

The lyrium in the sword bubbled under the surface, glowing in the dim light. It had never glowed like that before. “The idol,” Hawke said in recognition. “It drove Bartrand insane.”

I am not insane. I am the only one who can see that even though the solution to the problem of the mages will kill many, it will save so many more. I am not insane for knowing that what breaks my heart, what tears it into pieces, will keep so many other families together.

I would have the heads of the traitors and the murderers. And the mages would be buried in nameless graves in nameless hills and I would save my city.

My orders would not change. Many loyal templars rallied to my side, but Cullen and Carver stood in front of me. Between Marian Hawke and my blade sparking with red lyrium. Between the so-called Champion and the death she deserved for championing the wrong cause.

“I won’t kill my sister for you!” Carver yelled through gritted teeth. He hated her, hated his sister. He lived and breathed the hate, felt it enter his body every day. He knew the hate, birthed the hate. Yet he would not let her die. He would fight for her. He would not let her go.

I could see my sister bowed, hunched over, breath coming so fast I scarcely knew how she was alive. Such loud breath yet such quiet words. “I need it to stop… Please… I’ll do anything… I just need these thoughts, these fears… Stop!” She was not talking to me. She was talking to no one as she sank to her knees and reached out her hands into the empty air. She was begging.

And her hands clasped around something. I couldn’t see it, but it looked like she was holding someone’s hands. They pulled her up and she turned around to look at me. Her eyes looked haunted. She already looked dead. “Get out of here, Meredith,” she said in her own voice. Shaking but steady as she clung onto nothing. That was the last time I heard her speak. But the demon spoke to me after beheading my parents. “You cannot escape me. I will find you and I will kill you.”

I ran through the hallway and hid in my room. Urine ran down my leg. I watched the demon walk out the door into a group full of children. I hid. I bent down under the window so I wouldn’t have to hear them screaming. It was okay if they didn’t scream.

No one screamed as I attacked.

The fight was a whirlwind. Hawke called the magic of fire to her hands, her mabari bounding forward with a snarl. Quick movements sent fighters to the front, rogues to the back. Hawke at the front, leading, smearing a stripe of blood across her nose with her thumb.

I raised my hands. Called to the Maker and the lyrium SANG, red boiling in my veins. The statues, the Gate Guardians, burst into life. Flew down from their metal cages. Free, free, FREE.

Hawke looked shocked, I could see it in her eyes even with the red clouding, the red pulsating and pushing me away. The statues attacked, heartless pieces of metal coming between humans, between hearts. Their metallic blades stained as their eyeless heads stared out thoughtlessly at the destruction.

Hawke felled the second statue herself. I shot a wave of Holy Smite at her; she jumped aside. I could hear her breathing hard with exertion. She was breathing and Elthina was not, she was moving and Elthina was reduced to vapors in the sky. I grabbed hold of Sebastian. “How does it feel when I hold what is dearest to you?”

She snarled and curled her fist, grasping at a flame she conjured from the air. I dropped her lover to the ground and her fireball ignited my armor. It struck me that I was feeling no pain, that even though I bore no shield I could not feel the fire licking at my skin. All I could feel was the red, the deep red, the crimson, etching itself into me. A beautiful combination of pleasure and torture.

“Maker! Aid your humble servant!” From a distant place, I could hear a scream. From a distant place, I knew the one screaming was me.

All I could do as the sword vibrated and pulled itself apart on nonexistent seams was to stare up at the sky.

The sky roiled and churned, spitting out chunks of Chantry. Red clouds sponged up the red sky. The sky bled. It vomited great clouds of smoke and the bricks of the building onto my city.

This was my sky. And it was her sky too. Amelia a m e l i a aMELIA

I wanted to share the sky with you, my sister.


End file.
